Oral Answers to Questions

TREASURY

The Chancellor of the Exchequer was asked—

Basel II Accords

Nigel Beard: What progress is being made in settling new international arrangements for banking regulation through the Basel II accords.

Gordon Brown: The Basel committee on banking supervision expects to complete the new Basel accord on regulatory capital requirements by mid-year 2004, with implementation planned for the end of 2006.

Nigel Beard: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Given the increasing tendency of banks to transfer their risks to insurance businesses, does he agree that the capital adequacy of insurance companies that trade internationally may need international regulation similar to that provided for the banks by the Basel accord?

Gordon Brown: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who chairs an all-party committee that has been looking at this matter. The Basel accord is a voluntary arrangement that involves the banks. The EU directive that will flow from it will include financial institutions. I gather that a separate directive will cover the insurance industry, but this House would debate all those matters before any directive was agreed.

Vincent Cable: Can the Chancellor confirm that one of the objectives of risk-based regulation under the Basel accord is the prevention of dangerous booms and busts in bank lending? Will he therefore explain why, at a national level, no one is taking responsibility for the often reckless debt promotion by the leading banks and credit card companies? Given yesterday's conclusions of the Treasury Committee, does that not suggest that the Government and the regulators are either blind or asleep where the banks are concerned?

Gordon Brown: I suspect that the rest of the hon. Gentleman's party are using their credit cards and injecting spending into the economy at this very moment, so that we can meet our growth target with greater confidence. His question was more about credit cards than the Basel accord, but I can tell him that I welcome the report from the Treasury Committee. It is clear that issues of transparency are involved, and that the various organisations mentioned in the report—the Office of Fair Trading and the Financial Services Authority, among others—will want to look at the recommendations. It is in no one's interest that there is either irresponsible lending or irresponsible borrowing. I hope that he welcomed the consumer credit White Paper that was published a few days ago.

John McFall: I assume that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will be using his credit card prudently over the Christmas period. However, India and China are not included in the Basel II accords, and the USA is rumoured to be unwilling to sign up. Will that not have an effect on the final agreement?

Gordon Brown: I am grateful again to the Chairman of the Select Committee. He has completed a report on credit cards and it is receiving the attention that it deserves today. I hope that people named by the Treasury Committee will look at the report's conclusions. I know that my hon. Friend has also taken an interest in the Basel accord, and it is true that it involves the G10. However, in the nature of things, other countries took up the recommendations in the previous Basel accord. As far as America is concerned, all those involved are working to the mid-2004 deadline. Despite the comments two days ago by one of the US regulators, I am assured that the intention is to complete the work as soon as possible. That will lead to implementation not in 2005 but in 2006. At the same time, we will be discussing an EU directive. That would not be voluntary: it would be a statutory guideline for banks and some financial institutions as well.

Public Expenditure (West Cumbria)

Tony Cunningham: If he will make a statement on levels of public spending in West Cumbria.

Gordon Brown: Investment in public services since 1997 has resulted in Cumbria gaining 400 extra teachers and more than 700 extra teaching support staff, while Cumbria and Lancashire have gained nearly 100 extra general practitioners and 1,600 more nurses.

Tony Cunningham: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. I hope that he will take the opportunity of coming to visit my constituency to see the success of the increased public spending. We have a new further education college, a new police station, four new roundabouts, a new bypass, two new Sure Start projects, and work has just started on the building of a new hospital. I am sure that he will agree that it is no coincidence that all that success has been achieved under a Labour Government.

Gordon Brown: I was going to offer my hon. Friend a Christmas present from the Treasury, but it is clear that he does not need one. He is absolutely right. In the typical constituency, £200 million more has been invested in each year since 1997. That has meant that we are able to pay for nurses, teachers, doctors and classroom assistants. The whole House will understand that that would not have been possible if we had reduced public spending by £80 billion, as the Conservatives plan.

Employment Assistance

Mark Todd: What representation he has received on measures promoted by his Department to help people into work.

Gordon Brown: I receive a variety of representations on the Government's measures to help people into work. The success of those measures is evident in Wednesday's employment figures. There are more people in work now than at any time in our history, and the unemployment rate in Britain is at its lowest since 1975. The new deal has helped more than 950,000 individuals into work.

Mark Todd: I thank the Chancellor for that answer. There is a great deal for which we are thankful in South Derbyshire, with those who are unemployed and claiming benefit now numbering only 850—1,100 fewer than when the Government came to power. I would welcome his response to my gentle suggestion that he clarify the future of the export credits guarantee scheme, which is critical to the future of companies such as Rolls-Royce, which employs many of the workers in my area.

Gordon Brown: I have met John Rose, the head of Rolls-Royce, and we are aware of the importance that it attaches both to export credit guarantees and to the Government's support for innovation and for science. My hon. Friend will know that we are doing more than any Government have done to promote science in this country.
	As for the new deal, not only has my hon. Friend's constituency seen a very big reduction in unemployment, but unemployment rates in almost every one of the constituencies of Conservative Front Benchers are now 2 per cent. or below.

Michael Fallon: Will the Chancellor confirm that two thirds of the new jobs created this year are in the public sector and that, although many of them may be very worth while jobs in nursing and teaching, they all have to be paid for by the wealth-creating sector?

Gordon Brown: I thought that the hon. Gentleman was going to congratulate us on the 60 per cent. cut in unemployment in his constituency since 1997. The reason why he did not is that the Conservatives want to abolish the very instrument for getting unemployment down—the new deal. He will know that it is completely untrue to say that two thirds of jobs created since 1997 have been created in the public sector. The fact is that 1.24 million jobs have been created in the private sector. Conservative Members should be congratulating us on having the lowest unemployment rate of any of the major countries—something that they never achieved in 18 years of government.

Valerie Davey: In Bristol, the new deal has been particularly successful in getting young people into work. Will my right hon. Friend comment on the level of youth employment nationally and its effect on the economy?

Gordon Brown: Only around 5,000 young people—an average of eight per constituency—have been unemployed for more than a year. In the mid-1980s, under a Conservative Government, 350,000 young people were in that position. The fact that the Conservatives would abolish the new deal shows that they have learned nothing from the mistakes of the past.

Bob Spink: In a spirit of Christmas cheer, I congratulate the Chancellor and the Government on their job creation efforts, which have gone well—there is no denying that. [Hon. Members: "Oh!"] Well, fair play. However, may I encourage the Chancellor to look again at the growing level of regulation, which is depressing job creation in the wealth-generating sector?

Gordon Brown: It is precisely because of the issues involved in regulation that we simplified the VAT system in the Budget and removed the audit requirements and the requirement on companies to issue two sets of accounts—one for the Inland Revenue and one for Companies House. The hon. Gentleman has welcomed the new deal—he should have a Christmas lunch with the shadow Chancellor, who said that the new deal is an expensive failure. They must reconcile those contradictory positions.

Dennis Skinner: Is the Chancellor of the Exchequer aware that, in coalfield areas, particularly Derbyshire, the Tories took the pits out of the public sector, put them into the private sector and then shut every single one? Since 1997, we have had the mammoth task of trying to rejuvenate those areas. That has been a huge success, but we still have one pending—the Bolsover-Markham employment zone, near junction 29A off the M1. Five thousand jobs will materialise in that area. Will he ensure that as the planning applications have not been called in we can have a Christmas present for all the people in north Derbyshire?

Gordon Brown: Christmas cheer is around at the moment and I respect my hon. Friend's work, undertaken even when he was ill, in promoting coalfield regeneration. We will look back on the past few years as an attempt to resurrect communities that were left with terrible problems as a result of the way in which the coal industry was run down in the 1980s. I shall consider his proposal for Bolsover, but he should know that the new deal for communities is being expanded. There are now 2,000 designated enterprise areas, with huge incentives for development. We are intent on not only keeping unemployment low but tackling areas of continuing long-term unemployment that deserve the support of a compassionate Government.

Stamp Duty Land Tax

Bill Wiggin: What discussions he has had with representatives of licensees regarding the case for reform of stamp duty land tax.

Ruth Kelly: In the Finance Bill of 2003, the Government modernised and streamlined the stamp duty system. As a result of tax avoidance, only half the stamp duty owed on all large commercial property transactions was being paid. As part of our package, we reviewed the lease duty regime to ensure that businesses pay stamp duty fairly and consistently. Following consultation, including with the British Beer and Pub Association, the stamp duty land tax proposals were amended to help all tenants, but it was targeted at small and medium-sized businesses.

Bill Wiggin: Is it correct that independent evidence shows that the average pub licensee faces a tenfold increase in the amount of tax from £600 to £6,000? How can the Financial Secretary possibly justify that?

Ruth Kelly: From the information that the licensed trade supplied, we know that very few leases were exempt from stamp duty under the old regime. However, increasing the threshold means that more than 30 times the number of leases in the sector will be exempt from stamp duty land tax duty.

Mark Prisk: For licensees and others, the tax is half-baked and hideously bureaucratic, yet the real scandal is the increase in the tax burden, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin) referred. Since 1997, stamp duty has been increased four times, and now we have discovered a fifth increase. Tucked away on page 217—how surprising—of the pre-Budget report is the information that the Government expect stamp duty revenue to rise from £7.5 billion this year to £9.3 billion next year. Given that property prices are expected to rise next year by 8 per cent., how do the Government plan to secure an increase of 24 per cent. in revenue?

Ruth Kelly: The hon. Gentleman has got his facts completely wrong. The tax burden is lower now than it was almost throughout the 1980s. He must realise that the economy is stronger than it has ever been, with 1.7 million more people in work, interest rates at their lowest since 1955 and net wealth, including property prices, rising.

Energy Efficiency

Alan Simpson: If he will make a statement on the implications of the pre-Budget statement for the energy efficiency implementation plan to be proposed in the forthcoming energy White Paper.

John Healey: The Government plan to follow up the energy White Paper by publishing the implementation plan on energy efficiency early next year. The pre-Budget report confirmed the case for using further economic instruments and we are giving close consideration to a range of measures. My hon. Friend knows that decisions on tax are, as always, a matter for the Chancellor in the Budget.

Alan Simpson: I know that we made a commitment in the pre-Budget statement to introduce further measures on energy efficiency in the home. However, will my hon. Friend ensure that he, the Chancellor and Treasury team pay special attention to the warnings that we have just received from the Government's fuel poverty adviser that, unless there is a dramatic increase in the warm homes programme, we will fail to meet our commitments to tackle and to eliminate fuel poverty? Given the Chancellor's specific interests in the problems of child poverty, will he ensure that dealing with fuel poverty is a priority in the forthcoming Budget?

John Healey: My hon. Friend is right about the value of the warm homes initiative. Indeed, in the past couple of weeks, I visited constituents, Mr. and Mrs. Cowdell, in Wath upon Dearne. They, like some of my hon. Friend's constituents, have benefited from the programme by insulating their home, cutting their bills and being kept warm throughout the winter for the first time in their lives. His points about trying to ensure that our measures improve energy efficiency and reduce domestic fuel poverty are well made. The pre-Budget report confirms that we see the case for using more economic instruments in this area to promote energy efficiency and reduce fuel poverty in the home. The work is complicated at present by a review of the reduced rates of VAT in Europe and by a review within government of corporation tax, but we are working hard on these measures and hope to make announcements on the budget cycle in due course.

Richard Ottaway: The Minister will be aware that a key to sustainable and efficient energy is the renewables obligation. However, is he aware that, beyond that obligation, not a single new generating project is being developed owing to a complete lack of long-term finance? What steps is the Treasury taking to encourage long-term finance in the electricity generating sector?

John Healey: Today's announcement about offshore wind capacity forms part of an extended programme of support that we are putting in place to encourage the kind of long-term investment that the hon. Gentleman is after. He is right to highlight the role of electricity generation in meeting our climate change targets but that is not the only area involved. The pre-Budget report and the track record of this Government since 1997 demonstrate that we will take decisions for the long term and put in place programmes of support that will help the UK to make a contribution to tackling the threat of global warming.

Child Poverty

Tom Harris: What measures his Department is taking to tackle child poverty.

Dawn Primarolo: As part of their commitment to tackling child poverty, the Government have improved financial support for families with children, increasing child benefit for the first child in every family by 25 per cent. in real terms since 1997, and introducing the child tax credit in April 2003. A total of 5.9 million families are already benefiting from the new tax credits. This is 98 per cent. of the total number of families expected to benefit in 2003–04.
	The Chancellor announced in last week's pre-Budget report an increase in the child element of the child tax credit by £180 to £1,625 a year in April 2004, equivalent to a weekly increase of £3.50, benefiting 7.2 million children in 3.7 million families. As a result, the Government are on track to meet or to exceed their public service agreement target to reduce the number of children in low income households by a quarter by 2004–05 on a before housing costs basis.

Tom Harris: I am sure that my right hon. Friend will agree that, if a Labour Government are for anything, they are for the fight against poverty, particularly child poverty. Given that the Joseph Rowntree Foundation announced only this month that the latest figures have passed the notable milestone of taking income poverty lower than at any time in the 1990s, does she agree that the Government's aspiration to abolish child poverty altogether should be founded not only on one party's policies but on bipartisan consensus?

Dawn Primarolo: I congratulate my hon. Friend on all the work that he does on these issues in his constituency. I agree entirely, and I hope that Opposition Members will, even at this late stage, join the Government in an all-party crusade to eradicate poverty from society, particularly among children, instead of simply complaining about the fact that people live in poverty. It is difficult, however, to see how their commitment to cuts of £80 billion would help to achieve that.

David Laws: The extra money for tackling child poverty announced by the Chancellor in the pre-Budget report is certainly welcome. Can the Minister explain, however, why the Chancellor did not have the honesty to explain in his statement that the child poverty measures were being funded by freezing other tax credits?

Dawn Primarolo: I regret the tone of the hon. Gentleman's question, which is typical of the kind of carping that goes on, rather than joining in the celebrations. As he well knows, all the elements of the child tax credit were announced on pre-Budget day, as is always the case. He is trying to make it sound as though the House was misled, but perhaps I should remind him that for the first time millions of families are receiving the payment, which he and his party have yet to confirm that they would honour.

Barry Sheerman: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, although we have made remarkable progress and invested so much in early years and the eradication of child poverty, it is still true that the Sure Start programme is one of the most effective that we have introduced? However, a lot of children in poor homes do not live in the 20 per cent. of wards that are the most deprived, so can she think of any way in which we can get to those poor children more quickly?

Dawn Primarolo: My hon. Friend is entirely right. I am sure that everyone in the House will want to celebrate the massive achievements of the Sure Start programme. At its centre, it involves parents in shaping their future and that of their children.
	My hon. Friend will also know that the Government's commitment on children's centres is a commitment to roll out and to continue that programme. To take a much wider perspective, I am sure that he would acknowledge that in tackling poverty—particularly child poverty—the Government need to concentrate not only on the income of such families but on the full range of public services that are delivered to them.

Henry Bellingham: The Chancellor has said lots of times that one of the best ways to tackle child poverty is to get unemployment down. Obviously, progress is being made, but can it continue? Has the Minister had a chance to examine the recent CBI report on Britain as a place to do business? It reveals that 60 per cent. of senior managers surveyed believe that the Government are not taking seriously their concerns about red tape and regulation, and 40 per cent. said that they were thinking of offshoring—

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is far too wide of the question.

George Mudie: May I speak on child poverty? I applaud the Chancellor and the Treasury team's £1 billion pre-Budget report initiative to deal with child poverty and particularly commend the children's bond, which will give the poorest children in the country £500 immediately, with additional sums so that they will have a nest egg at 18 that they would not have dreamed of having otherwise. However, does the Minister share my sadness that the official Opposition did not go into the Lobby last week—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The first part of the question was in order.

Dawn Primarolo: It is an excellent question, Mr. Speaker. I congratulate my hon. Friend because I know that he has done a huge amount of work in his constituency on that matter. He highlights the commitment to the child trust fund as one of many measures that the Government are taking. It is an asset of £500 for a child over their life. It encourages the savings habit and is an example of progressive universalism. I return to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Harris). We need all-party support and determination to tackle and to eradicate child poverty—support and determination that unfortunately are seriously lacking in both Opposition parties.

NHS Expenditure

Rob Marris: If he will make a statement on his policy for public expenditure to 2008 in relation to the NHS.

Paul Boateng: The Government are committed, as we announced last year, to raising health service funding by £41 billion over the five years to 2008—the biggest ever sustained increase in NHS funding.

Rob Marris: I thank my right hon. Friend for that helpful and encouraging answer. I am pleased to hear his confirmation that the NHS will continue to receive the Government money it needs. May I seek his assurance that the Government will not seek to fund health care through devices such as vouchers, tax reliefs or any extension of co-payment?

Paul Boateng: I am happy to give my hon. Friend that assurance. He describes the policy of the Conservative party, which in office failed to invest sufficiently in the health service and ran it down, so that in 1997—[Interruption.] Conservative Members groan and moan but, if one compares health spending with what it was in 1997, one finds that by 2008 it will be 90 per cent. higher in real terms than when their party had stewardship of the economy.

Oliver Letwin: The Chief Secretary congratulates the Government on raising NHS spending by £35 billion a year until 2008, but does he accept that the people of this country expect to get value for such vast amounts of money?

Paul Boateng: People are getting value. Let us examine what that money has bought. There are 25,000 more doctors, 80,000 more nurses and 100 new hospitals. Compare that with what was achieved under the stewardship of Conservative Members. When we came to power in 1997, not one new hospital had been built under the private finance initiative. That is their record: this is ours.

Oliver Letwin: I am delighted that the Chief Secretary is able to name some things that the money has so far bought, but how does he explain the fact that a 37 per cent. increase in spending has led to only a 5 per cent. increase in the number of operations, and no increased improvement in waiting times?

Paul Boateng: Just look at the facts. Out-patient attendances in 1997–98 were 11.53 million, whereas in 2003 they were 13.03 million. Elective admissions were 4.46 million, and in 2003 were 5.32 million. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) is using a camera.

Henry Bellingham: It is a mobile phone.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member should not be using a mobile phone. I ask him to leave the Chamber.

Paul Boateng: On waiting times, 186,000 fewer patients are waiting for treatment now than when the Conservatives were in office. Out-patient waits of more than 26 weeks have been virtually eliminated, and 98.5 per cent. of suspected cancer patients are seen by a specialist within two weeks. We are proud of that record. The right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) should be ashamed of himself for denigrating and running down the NHS, as he does time and again.

Oliver Letwin: I am sorry that the Chief Secretary is unable to explain the official figures. Can he do any better at explaining why, when there has been only a 5 per cent. increase in the number of operations, there has been a 45 per cent. increase in the number of managers? Does that accord with the Labour manifesto pledge to rebuild the NHS and to reduce spending on administration?

Paul Boateng: That is an old canard. It is no use the shadow Chancellor looking pained. He ought to look at the facts. The fact of the matter is that his definition of administrators and bureaucrats includes painters, gardeners, doctors' secretaries, electricians, cleaners and thousands of valuable support and ancillary workers, all of whom contribute to the success of the NHS. Why does not he give them and—yes, it is Christmas—us some credit for that achievement?

James Plaskitt: I can tell my right hon. Friend what increased investment has already delivered to the NHS at Warwick hospital. There are 150 more nurses, 20 more consultants, and a 40 per cent. increase in activity levels. We want to go further and get booked appointments and even shorter waiting times. Will the additional investment be forthcoming to deliver that?

Paul Boateng: That is indeed the Government's policy—resources firmly linked to reform. That is why we have devolved power to front-line organisations, and why we are giving new financial incentives to improve performance. We are reforming the NHS. Given half a chance, the Conservatives would ruin it with charges, cuts and unfair, inequitable subsidies for private health insurance.

Mark Field: The Chief Secretary will be glad to know that I shall not raise an old canard, but I may have a new canard in mind. I appreciate what he has to say about public funding for the health service, but equally he will appreciate that there need to be financial incentives for private health care. Does he believe that that is ideologically wrong, even if financial incentives for private health care ensure that there is a bigger pot for health care on which all our citizens can rely?

Paul Boateng: No, I do not. This has nothing whatever to do with ideology, but everything to do with how best to help people and how best to deliver an NHS that is fair and free at the point of use. We need to stand back for a moment and reflect on what health care would be like if we were to provide the subsidy for people with private medical insurance that some Opposition Members propose—including, I suspect, the hon. Gentleman. The Opposition's patient passport would increase deadweight costs by up to £1 billion. That would be the price the taxpayer would have to pay for something that was enjoyed only by the very richest in our society. That simply is not fair.

Brian Iddon: The Government have a policy of closing the gap between target expenditure and that of NHS trusts covering constituencies such as mine which, in 1997, were far from the target. The gap is closing extremely slowly, however. Will my right hon. Friend look again at the formula that delivers extra expenditure to deprived communities like mine, and try to close the gap a little more rapidly?

Paul Boateng: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health is devoting considerable attention to that very question, and to the best way of ensuring that we continue to reduce inequity in health care and provision.

Andrew Turner: Will the right hon. Gentleman put on record the Treasury definition of public expenditure, and also the Treasury definition of public sector investment, so that next time the Prime Minister is asked that question—as he was yesterday—he does not through ignorance lamentably and inadvertently mislead the House?

Paul Boateng: The Prime Minister did no such thing. This is a definition that has ensured that we are now delivering 450,000 more operations than in 1997–98. It is a definition that has ensured that we are now involved in providing 860,000 more elective admissions each year. It is a definition that has worked for this country, and for the NHS.

Public Services (Wigan Borough)

Neil Turner: What assessment he has made of the effect of proposals to change the level of investment in public services in the Wigan borough.

Paul Boateng: Wigan borough is benefiting from the Government's increased investment in public services, and will continue to do so, like all parts of the United Kingdom.

Neil Turner: Is my right hon. Friend aware that we have benefited from a £30 million programme delivering new surgeries for doctors, £25 million for a new hospital, £20 million for a further education college, £137 million to bring our housing stock up to decent standards, a new police station and a new fire station? Can he confirm that many of those would be threatened if we had to put up with a reduction of £80 billion in public expenditure in the coming financial year?

Paul Boateng: In the spirit of Christmas, I am happy to give that confirmation.

Andy Burnham: In Leigh, the best part of Wigan borough, the NHS is improving, but at the end of the current spending round Ashton, Leigh and Wigan primary care trust will be some £10 million adrift from the funding target. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the best way of tackling health inequalities is to target resources where health is poorest? May I, like my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon), urge him to talk to his colleagues in the Department of Health to establish whether the pace of the "pace of change" policy can be quickened in the next spending round?

Paul Boateng: I assure my hon. Friend that we are well aware of the impact of health inequalities. That is why the Government introduced a fairer funding formula for the NHS in 2002. It was an historic settlement: every primary care trust gained at least 8.3 per cent. in cash terms this year. That is progress, but we must continue to build on it. There is no room for complacency, and I hear what my hon. Friend says.

Council Tax

Paul Tyler: What the average proportion of income paid in council tax by low-income households is in England in 2003-04; and if he will make a statement.

Dawn Primarolo: Information for 2003–04 is not available. The latest available information, for 2001–02, shows that the bottom 20 per cent. of households paid 4.8 per cent. of their income in council tax, after allowing for council tax benefit.

Paul Tyler: The Minister will know that in Cornwall, and in the south-west generally, many households fall into that category while others are just above that level, and do not benefit from the council tax benefit concessions. Will she now give us a straightforward answer to a straightforward question? Has that proportion risen or fallen since the Government came to power?

Dawn Primarolo: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will congratulate the Government, as will his constituents, on the extra £340 million announced on Wednesday 10 December. That shows that the Government recognise the particular pressures on local authorities in terms of the environment and social services for children. That money is on top of the extra £420 million announced in the provisional statement in November. We should make the comparison with previous years. By next year, local authorities will have received a real-terms increase of some 30 per cent. since 1997, as against a fall of 7 per cent. in the last years of the previous Government.
	I note that the hon. Gentleman's party is not suggesting that it would vary expenditure levels from the Government's current position, so perhaps he would like to tell us what the magic answer is that the Government's proposals do not provide.

Barry Gardiner: Given the effect of the council tax on low-income families, does my right hon. Friend agree that it is unsurprising to find that council taxes in Labour areas are, on average, the lowest, while those in Conservative areas are the highest, and those in Liberal Democrat areas are the second highest?

Dawn Primarolo: What is important is that the Government and local authorities work together to improve the quality of services, and that the decisions that local authorities take for their council tax payers are reflected in the quality of the services then provided. As the Government made clear as recently as last week in the pre-Budget statement, we stand ready to play our part; the question now is whether local authorities will continue to play theirs.

Patrick Cormack: Does the right hon. Lady accept that the last question was somewhat loaded, and will she also assure the House that however much the Liberal Democrats might rabbit on about local income tax, this Government will never introduce it?

Dawn Primarolo: The Prime Minister has made it clear that we do not favour that particular proposal, but for such any such proposal to be taken seriously, the Liberal Democrats would need to move beyond generalisations and tell us exactly how it would be achieved, how much it would cost and what extra bureaucracy would be entailed, particularly in respect of employers, who currently collect pay-as-you-earn. How would they deal with such a highly complex system, and how much would it cost them?

Stephen McCabe: Does my right hon. Friend agree that replacing the council tax with local income tax would entrench regional disparities, and result in the poorest people in the poorest regions bearing a far greater proportion of the cost?

Dawn Primarolo: As you, Mr. Speaker, often say to Ministers at the Dispatch Box, it is not possible for us to speculate on the details of Liberal Democrat proposals. As always, the Liberal Democrats provide no detail and simply make win, win generalisations. Even superficial scrutiny of these proposals would reveal the problems of local disparities, the complexity of the system and the burdens on employers. As a result, the security of finance to local authorities could be seriously undermined.

Andrew Tyrie: A moment ago, the Paymaster General referred to the £340 million that has been given to help contain the massive council tax rises resulting from Labour's burdening of local authorities with huge demands to supply more services. Is she aware that, either through incompetence—as I suspect—or design, the distribution formula means that each council tax payer in East Sussex and West Sussex will receive precisely tuppence of that £340 million? Does she not realise that those who are worst hit by these policies are poor people and pensioners in constituencies such as mine? How can she possibly justify a figure of tuppence a head?

Dawn Primarolo: I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the Dispatch Box—this is the first time he has asked a question in Treasury orals. If he cares to look at the tax and benefit reform undertaken by this Government and opposed by his party, he will see, for example, the massive increases in respect of families with children in the poorest fifth of the population. On average, they will be £2,900 a year better off by September 2004. The poorest one third of pensioner households have gained £1,600 a year in real terms. We have given £3.6 billion extra in resources and, as the hon. Gentleman well knows, the targeting of those resources at the very poorest in our community is the Government's priority, but his party has failed to commit itself to that strategy.

Climate Change Levy

Colin Challen: What his assessment is of the effectiveness of the climate change levy.

John Healey: The climate change levy was designed as an environmental tax, and is achieving important environmental gains. UK carbon emissions fell by 3.5 per cent. in 2002, and although there are always a number of factors affecting emission levels, it is clear that the levy system will have played an important part in that reduction.

Colin Challen: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer, because it shows that a bold and decisive policy gets bold and decisive results. Will he assure me that the hard won gains in reduced carbon emissions will not be sacrificed owing to the exponential growth in aviation, and that the Government will take a similarly bold and decisive policy approach to reducing emissions from aircraft?

John Healey: My hon. Friend is something of an expert on the subject; he serves with distinguished commitment on the Environmental Audit Committee. He is right that aviation is responsible for about 10 per cent. of the UK climate change problem, but the projections that I think he has in mind overstate the potential problem, and fail to take into account a couple of important points, as he may recognise. First, the projections assume no improvements in technology, although over the past 30 years there has been a 50 per cent. cut in fuel consumption. Secondly, they assume that no new measures will be put in place. My hon. Friend will know, because his Committee has studied the matter, that with the publication of this week's air transport White Paper, it is clear that we are putting in place what I hope he will acknowledge to be bold and decisive measures to deal with emissions that contribute to climate change, noise levels that affect local residents, and local air pollution. The air transport White Paper makes it clear that the additional capacity that we need in this country will be balanced by broad-ranging environmental measures to tackle the environmental consequences of aviation, which we need, too.

Peter Pike: Does my hon. Friend recognise that although the policy has obviously achieved the environmental impact that he mentioned, the Government changed it considerably to meet the requirements of heavy energy users from the industrial sector? Will he confirm that discussions on that subject are ongoing, because as well as wanting environmental benefits, the Government recognise the importance of ensuring that our manufacturing jobs are secure, and that we keep those jobs?

John Healey: I can indeed confirm that. My hon. Friend follows these issues closely, so he will know that the climate change agreements that we put in place, which give the heavy energy-using sectors that he has in mind a discount of up to 80 per cent., have delivered three times the anticipated savings in carbon dioxide emissions. He will have noticed that last week my right hon. Friend the Chancellor confirmed that we are prepared to extend the eligibility for those negotiated agreements to equally intensive energy-using sectors that face international competition. I am sure that my hon. Friend will welcome that move, as will many parts of industry.

Public Spending

Lawrie Quinn: What assessment he has made of the effects on investment in infrastructure in Yorkshire of reducing public spending to 35 per cent. of GDP.

Gordon Brown: As I announced in the pre-Budget report, total managed expenditure in the UK for 2003–04 will be 41.4 per cent. of national income. Cutting total managed expenditure by 6.4 per cent. of GDP in the UK, were it to be reflected locally, would mean, in Yorkshire, a cut in spending of £100 million for each constituency, and that would mean fewer doctors, nurses, teachers and classroom assistants.

Lawrie Quinn: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. Does he agree that one of the main challenges in Yorkshire is the lack of investment in our transport infrastructure? If those policies were followed, what assessment would he make of our chances of clawing back the 30 years and more of under-investment in transport infrastructure in my region?

Gordon Brown: The local transport capital expenditure for Yorkshire and Humberside was £180 million, and it is £106 million in 2003–04. That compares with just £70 million in 1999. That doubling of expenditure could not take place under a 35 per cent. of GDP quota. Nurses, doctors and teachers, as well as the road and rail programmes, would be affected by such a massive cut.

Anne McIntosh: How can the Chancellor square the record increase in investment in Network Rail with the fact that performance will not reach the levels enjoyed on the railways in 1997 for a considerable time to come? He is putting more money in, but performance and reliability on the railways is decreasing under this Government.

Gordon Brown: The hon. Lady forgets that more people are using the railways than at any time for 50 years, as a result of the extra investment that has been put in by this Government. She appears not to have heard that her Front Benchers have regretted railway privatisation and apologised for it. Just as they were wrong on the new deal, the Bank of England and the minimum wage, they were wrong in the way they privatised the railways.

Hugh Bayley: What would the impact be on investment projects—such as the three new schools being built in York, the £16 million upgrade of York district hospital, the £26 million that York city council has to buy new buses and extend its bus services, and the university's planned expansion, with the creation of a new medical school and a new campus—if the Government were to go back to a 35 per cent. level of public expenditure?

Gordon Brown: If we were faced with the spending level proposed by the Conservatives, with public expenditure pegged at 35 per cent., we would have to sack most of the 50,000 nurses, the 20,000 doctors, the 20,000 teachers and the 90,000 classroom assistants who have been employed—[Interruption]—and they laugh at the prospect of sacking such important public service workers.

Home Energy Efficiency

Sue Doughty: How many respondents to the recent Treasury consultation on economic instruments to improve household energy efficiency supported a rate of VAT of 5 per cent. for the supply and installation of energy-efficient products or materials in non-grant schemes when householders employ contractors.

Brian White: How many respondents to the recent Treasury consultation on economic instruments to improve household energy efficiency supported capital allowances and enhanced capital allowances for companies to write off investments in energy saving equipment provided to social landlords and households.

John Healey: The Government have published a summary of consultation responses, which is available on the Treasury website. It explains that we received 126 responses to the consultation, of which 120 supported a reduced rate of VAT for the supply and installation of energy-efficient products or materials, and 67 supported capital allowances.

Sue Doughty: I thank the Minister for his answer and for the response he gave earlier to the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson). Will the Minister continue to examine closely the issue of reducing VAT on energy-saving materials and admit that the Government were wrong to suggest that Europe was stopping them reducing VAT to 5 per cent.? Will he make an announcement as soon as possible so that people can put plans in place to reduce the scourge of fuel poverty in this day and age?

John Healey: The hon. Lady serves on the Environmental Audit Committee, so I am surprised by her question. I would have expected her to know that it is wrong to say that without a change in Europe we could introduce a reduced rate of VAT on, for instance, energy-saving materials for do-it-yourself installation in homes. She is also wrong to say that without a change in Europe we can introduce a reduced rate for energy-efficient products such as fridges, boilers and light bulbs. We continue to battle with our friends in other member states in Europe to try to win the argument and we will consider the much narrower areas where we have the scope within the European system to introduce reduced rates that could help to achieve greater energy efficiency in the UK.

Brian White: I thank my hon. Friend for his earlier responses and I congratulate the Government on the swift announcement today of their combined heat and power targets for the whole of the Government estate, as required by the Sustainable Energy Act 2003. I wish to draw his attention to the frustration in the industry at the fact that the barriers that the Treasury consultation document so rightly identified could be addressed more quickly if the issue of capital allowances were tackled. I urge him to do that when the Government present their energy efficiency plan in February.

John Healey: In many ways I understand the point that my hon. Friend makes about impatience and frustration in the industry, but I hope that he will see the pre-Budget report as encouraging. It confirms that we see the case for using economic instruments to promote energy efficiency in the home and that we are considering a range of possible fiscal measures, including the capital allowances in which my hon. Friend is so interested. The work is complicated by the European review of reduced VAT rates and by a review that we have to undertake of the operation of corporation tax. Without a clearer idea of the outcome of both, it is difficult to make hard decisions. Nevertheless, we do not want to delay such decisions or announcements any longer than we need too.

Sydney Chapman: While I appreciate that in the area of energy efficiency VAT rating is a matter of EU directive interpretation and the decision of the Chancellor in his next Budget statement, will the Minister undertake a cost-benefit analysis well ahead of the Budget, which would indicate the loss to the Revenue on one side, if a selected group of energy efficiency materials had a lower rate of VAT—in particular, thermal insulation materials—against, on the other side, the benefits from improving energy efficiency in households? That would be helpful for the Government and the House in interpreting whatever measures the Chancellor announces in his next Budget.

John Healey: As the House will expect, we do such analyses of the economic costs and benefits of any potential policy measures. This is part and parcel of the case that we are making in Europe to have greater freedom in the United Kingdom to introduce reduced rates. Clearly, those calculations and that analysis will be part of any decisions that the Government take and the Chancellor announces as part of the Budget next year and beyond.

Millennium Development Goals

Win Griffiths: If he will make a further statement on progress towards achieving the millennium development goals.

Gordon Brown: In addition to our regular meetings at G7 and with African Finance Ministers, we are calling a conference on the millennium development goals and on the international finance facility that we have proposed with China, India, Brazil and South Africa. We are also hosting at the Treasury a conference of Church leaders, faith groups and business to advance our proposals for the international finance facility. We are grateful for all-party support for this new proposal.

Win Griffiths: I thank my right hon. Friend for that response. At the conference, will he use his good offices to impress on South Africa, India and China the need to make sure that all those extremely poor parts of the world that are war-riven are brought back to the table of peace, to make sure that there is the right context for the millennium goals to be achieved more quickly?

Gordon Brown: I know how much work my hon. Friend does in this area and how active he has been in promoting the cause of peace and debt relief round the world. The Government are involved in trying to resolve many conflicts, in particular those that afflict areas of Africa such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We have proposed for countries that are coming out of conflict a far speedier process of debt relief so that, as they restructure their country, they can also restructure their economy free from the burden of debt. I hope that he and others will support us in what we are doing.

Andy Reed: Nobody doubts the Chancellor's commitment to ensuring that the millennium development goals are met, but I am sure that he is aware that we are falling well short of the targets that we set ourselves on the way. Does he agree that they could be speeded up in two ways: by the World Trade Organisation talks getting back on track and, specifically—I speak as a member of the all-party group on heavily indebted poorest countries—by him looking again at the debt levels and sustainability of the HIPC initiative for a number of those countries, particularly in Africa, in the light of the reduction in the price of consumer products such as coffee?

Gordon Brown: We continue to look at how we can advance debt relief. Twenty-seven countries are getting debt relief. Some of the countries mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) could get debt relief if they were out of conflict. We continue to look at how we can persuade other countries to come up with more funds. My hon. Friend is right that the WTO talks are important to this and that public opinion matters in this. It is 20 years this Christmas since Bob Geldof's Band Aid raised public awareness of the problems of poverty in Africa. All parties and all good-minded people could combine and public opinion could be alerted to the blatant need to take further action to deal with world poverty.

Mr. Speaker: I call question 17. Norman Lamb is not here; the question has been withdrawn.

Fund Flows

Michael Fabricant: Thank you, Norman Lamb, and Mr. Speaker.
	What assessment has been made of current fund flows between the United Kingdom and (a) the European Union and (b) the United States; and if he will make a statement.

Ruth Kelly: The current account deficit in 2002 stood at 1.8 per cent. of GDP, well below past peaks. In 1989, the current account deficit reached more than 5 per cent. of GDP. The UK current account deficit is well below the US current account deficit of 5 per cent. of GDP.

Michael Fabricant: I thank the Minister for that answer. Will she give an idea of the current trade deficit with the European Union and the current trade surpluses with the United States of America? What lessons on international trade do they give the Government?

Ruth Kelly: I have already given the hon. Gentleman an idea of the figures. Despite the fact that the UK economy grew faster than any other country in the EC on average in 2001 and 2002, the latest statistics show that the trade deficit as a percentage of GDP has been stable over the past couple of years.

Police National Computer Records

James Paice: (urgent question): To ask the Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety to make a statement on the completeness of police national computer records in the light of the Soham murder case.

Hazel Blears: The whole House will join me in expressing our sympathy with the families of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. We cannot imagine the pain that they must be suffering, but we can work together to ensure that lessons are learned from the girls' murders.
	My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary yesterday announced an independent inquiry led by Sir Michael Bichard. That inquiry will look into child protection procedures in Humberside police and Cambridgeshire constabulary. It will assess the effectiveness of the relevant intelligence-based record keeping, the vetting practices in those forces since 1995 and information sharing with other agencies. Importantly, it will report to the Home Secretary on matters of local and national relevance and make any recommendations it believes appropriate.
	It is right that it should be Sir Michael Bichard who provides an authoritative answer on whether the completeness of police national computer records had a significant impact on the Soham case. I am sure the House will agree that I should not prejudge that independent inquiry. However, I can say that the speed and quality with which police forces record information on the police national computer has been the subject of a sustained focus by Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary in recent years.
	A year-long inspection that ran in two phases from March 2001 to April 2002 was not encouraging. It found poor business processes, exacerbated by the lack of a national IT solution. The backlog of unentered case results was mainly due to the absence of strategic prioritisation of the issue and the failure to allocate sufficient people to the task. As a result of that inspection, the HMIC managed and monitored a year-long programme of work in every force to improve performance. That has covered two areas. The first is arrest and summons reports, which initiate a new record. The target is for 90 per cent. of reports to be logged on to the system within 24 hours. Some 79 per cent. of cases in England and 76 per cent. of cases in Wales are meeting that target. The second relates to court results. Police forces are measured against a target of 90 per cent. of court results being inputted on to the police national computer within seven days. At the moment, 38 per cent. of cases in England and 30 per cent. of cases in Wales are meeting that target, with 80 per cent. of cases reaching it within 28 days.
	Forces have worked hard with the inspectorate to improve the situation. As a result, every force improved its performance and some were at, or near to, the nationally agreed targets. However, both the inspectorate and the Home Secretary are clear that many police forces must do a lot better to reach the standards that we are entitled to expect. To ensure that improvements are being made and properly tracked, a new team has been established in HMIC to audit and monitor forces' performance and intervene where necessary on a targeted basis.
	Further action has also been undertaken by the Association of Chief Police Officers, which has set up a group to pursue the implementation of the other recommendations in the HMIC report. Paramount among those is the development of a statutory code of practice under powers put in place under the Police Reform Act 2002. That will set standards for forces in relation to the timeliness of inputting. A draft has been produced and is out for consultation. The consultation ends in January, and our aim is that the code should be in place by next April. In parallel, we are working with the Court Service on a joint document to set out escalation processes to deal with problem cases should they arise.
	We have made very considerable progress in recent years in trying to ensure that vetting is effective and thorough, but we know that the Criminal Records Bureau can only be as good as the data available to it. That is why our ongoing work with police forces to ensure that the police national computer is kept up to date is so important. I assure the House that the inspectorate will continue to drive improvement in those forces that are not meeting their targets and that any further recommendations that Sir Michael Bichard makes will be dealt with speedily. The House and the people of this country would expect nothing less.

James Paice: I thank the Minister for her statement and for her kind words about my constituents, the families of the two little girls. Through her, I thank the Home Secretary for his promptness in setting up the inquiry headed by Sir Michael Bichard into the effectiveness of the vetting practices carried out by the Cambridgeshire and Humberside forces.
	My constituents in Soham, as well as parents throughout the country, are angry and horrified that a man with so many allegations against him came through the process apparently without criticism, and they wonder why no charges were brought when so many victims are now describing their experiences. Although the inquiry must be thorough and effective, will the Minister tell the House when she expects it to be able to report?
	Will the inquiry investigate allegations that the Data Protection Act 1998 and even perhaps the Human Rights Act 1998 have prevented Humberside police from keeping or passing on relevant information, and the counter-statement by the registrar that that is not the case? Will the inquiry also consider the present Criminal Records Bureau operations and its system of checking people for work with children? In particular, is it still possible for someone who changes their name to circumvent the checks?
	Has the Minister, as I have done, looked at the forms used by the CRB and seen how easy it would still be for someone of evil intent to evade detection? Is she satisfied that the quality control of work carried out by the CRB, including in Bombay, is adequate? Will she instigate, as one of her hon. Friends has suggested, random sampling to check the rigour of the CRB system?
	On the police national computer itself, is the Minister aware that, on 3 February this year, her predecessor, the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), answered a written question from me on this very subject? At column 72W of the Official Report he said that, in the period to December last year, police forces took 71 days on average to enter all court disposals on to the database, against a target of what he then said was three days. The Minister said in her answer that the target was now seven days. Can she explain the discrepancy?
	Will the Minister publish the report, which was apparently leaked yesterday, that suggested, according to the media, including the BBC, that the situation is getting worse rather than better? Will she explain why it was necessary to leak the report rather than publishing it in the interests of transparency, especially in the light of another answer that the right hon. Gentleman gave me on 30 October last year which, I am afraid flies in the face of what the Minister just told us when she said that the situation was very bad a year ago? The then Minister said:
	"The Inspectorate's first report showed considerable progress. Its second report, on the programme overall, which indicates substantial further progress, is under consideration."—[Official Report, 30 October 2002; Vol. 391, c. 846W.]
	Yet the Minister has just told us that, in fact, the situation was not showing any improvement at all. Can she explain how much of the delay in entering data on to the computer is caused by the courts not meeting their targets for notifying forces, and how much by forces not entering the data once they have received them? Is it not obvious that no vetting process can be effective if records are two months out of date? If, a year ago, the situation was apparently improving—as the then Minister told me—why does it seem that it has not got better since?
	The tragic and evil events that occurred in my constituency have struck a chord with people all over the country and abroad. Although we can never eliminate risk, it is essential that we ensure that those who work with our children do so with our trust. Will the Minister promise the House that Sir Michael Bichard's report will be published in full, and that whatever needs to be changed—people, systems or laws—it will be done?

Hazel Blears: My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said yesterday when he announced the inquiry that he wanted it to be completed speedily, particularly so that it does not cause further distress to the families, who have already gone through such a terrible time. My interpretation of "speedily" is a time scale of three to six months. Clearly, that will be a matter for Sir Michael Bichard in terms of his findings, but I want the matter to be dealt with as speedily as possible so that we can learn the lessons from what has happened.
	The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) asked whether the data protection legislation has inhibited the ability of forces to collect data and use them properly in the vetting process. I assure the House that the data protection legislation does not inhibit that process. The Data Protection Act 1998 provides that information should not be kept longer than is necessary, which requires forces, as it does all of us, to exercise a degree of judgment and professionalism in how they use data and how they deal with data in their system. There are requirements whereby data that relate to offences for which there has been imprisonment for more than six months, or to any kind of sexual or violent offences, should be retained. A detailed framework therefore exists in which information can be used properly while complying with the provisions of the Data Protection Act. Certainly, I do not see those provisions as a bar.
	In terms of the assurance of the process, the hon. Gentleman will be aware that we have been very concerned since the establishment of the Criminal Records Bureau, and in all the measures that we have taken subsequently, to ensure the integrity of its record keeping. We have wanted to drive performance not just in terms of timeliness but in terms of the quality of the results obtained. Every Member will appreciate that the Criminal Records Bureau has made significant progress. It had a difficult beginning, but the current process is much better. There is an ongoing consultation not just in relation to fees but in relation to the issue that that the hon. Gentleman raised about quality assurance: whether we can put more checks in place to ensure that we get the identity of the person correct when an application for a disclosure is submitted. We will look very carefully at the results of that consultation to see whether we can provide more quality assurance on that issue.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about the discrepancy between the seven-day target and the original three-day target. I understand that courts are given three days to pass such information to the police, who then have three days to put it on to the computer. Occasionally, I suppose, one of those days will be on a weekend, which explains why they are measured against a seven-day period.
	The hon. Gentleman asked whether the Bichard report will be published. I can undertake that that report will be published and will be available. It will be important that we all look at it closely and learn the lessons from it.
	The hon. Gentleman also raised the important issue—one that I raised myself with my officials—of what would happen in relation to a delay if information were not on the computer. We are dealing with two separate sets of information: convictions, which would be on the police national computer, and local intelligence. Many of the issues in the Huntley case concern local intelligence. Because there were no convictions, the incidents would not have found their way on to the police national computer in the first place. It is vital that forces have that local intelligence and that when someone applies for an enhanced disclosure from the Criminal Records Bureau, they access local intelligence as well as convictions, so there should be a rounded mix.
	As for the delay that the hon. Gentleman properly raised, 80 per cent. of cases are now getting on to the computer within a reasonable period of time—within 28 days—but when people apply for an enhanced disclosure they also get access to the arrests and summons that have not yet been entered. There ought to be sufficient checks in the system to ensure that there is no loophole through which people can go. I hope that the inquiry will look searchingly at those matters to ensure that the integrity and robustness of the whole system can be maintained. I give the hon. Gentleman an assurance and undertaking that the recommendations and lessons from the inquiry and the separate but parallel inquiry into child protection measures launched by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills will inform the way in which we proceed.

David Heath: May I ask the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) to pass on our condolences to the families of the victims, as well as the whole community that he represents?
	I welcome the inquiry. I hope that it will be thorough and speedy, and will take three, rather than six, months, if at all possible. I agree with the Minister that it is premature to point the finger of blame at individuals at this stage for what may be human error. Nevertheless, does she agree that there are clear signs of systemic failures in intelligence, data systems and media strategy? Given the catastrophic misunderstanding of the requirements of the Information Commissioner and the laws of data protection, will the Minister give me an assurance that, this very afternoon, as a matter of urgency, Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary will issue guidance in accordance with the commissioner's requirements to every police force about their responsibilities?
	Data inputting into the police national computer has been a matter of concern for some time. The Minister explained what she is doing about the timeliness of inputting, but can she say something about accuracy, which is of equal concern? If people put rubbish in the system, they get rubbish out. Will there be an audit of the accuracy of information held on the police national computer? Will she confirm the answer that she gave my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mrs. Brooke) on 8 December that 20 per cent. of employers and organisations using the Criminal Records Bureau have refused to employ an individual as a result? That is a remarkably high figure.
	On police operations, is the Minister satisfied with the system of mutual aid for small forces? I understand that, in Cambridgeshire, 300 officers from other forces were injected into the investigation at an early stage—that cannot but cause confusion in command and intelligence. Finally, has she had any indications that the police authorities in Humberside and Cambridgeshire are inquiring into the conduct of their senior officers?

Hazel Blears: I can certainly confirm the importance of the speediness of the inquiry. I am concerned to make sure that we get on with it as quickly as possible.
	As for system failures, they will be an essential part of Michael Bichard's investigation. I would not want to prejudge the issues in relation to Humberside and Cambridgeshire, as those are matters for the inquiry. However, the hon. Gentleman raised the important issue of systemic failures as well as individual culpability, and I am sure that those matters will be fully and properly explored. He asked whether HMIC can issue guidance this afternoon on information sharing. I cannot give an undertaking that that will happen this afternoon, but I acknowledge his right and proper call for urgent clarification. We shall certainly make sure that every force is aware of the legal position and the interaction of various bits of legislation. We must give them a firm foundation for the action that they take.
	The hon. Gentleman has again raised the issues of quality assurance and audit. As I said in my statement, a new team has been set up in HMIC, and we have considerably strengthened its capacity to audit the way in which forces are complying. For me, that is just as important in respect of quality as in respect of timeliness. Much of the information recorded by the CRB is very detailed and includes the colour of people's eyes and their distinguishing features. A previous audit showed that the information in relation to convictions is robust, but questions remain about the quality of some of the fine detail that is recorded. It is important for operational purposes that the police have that fine detail about eye colour, height and distinguishing features, and I am pleased to assure the hon. Gentleman that it was found that the PNC database's information on convictions was entirely accurate in more than 94 per cent. of cases. A previous report found that 85 per cent. of records contained errors or omissions but, as I said, those can be matters of very fine detail. The issue is important, and I do not want to underestimate it, but 94 per cent. of convictions records are entirely accurate, and we should be aware of that.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about people being refused employment. It was stated that 20 per cent. of people came into that category and, as far as we are aware, that is correct. One reason why questions about data protection have arisen is that the commissioner has been involved in a couple of cases in which very old convictions—incurred in what some may consider innocuous circumstances—have remained on file at the CRB. People have complained that they have been denied employment because of events that happened a long time ago. An example might be a schoolyard fight between two fairly young people that would have no bearing on any job being sought. That is one reason why the retention of information has become such a current issue.
	We must always aim at getting the right balance in these matters. People have genuine concerns about privacy and the information that is held on them, but the public interest is served by the Government having access to as much information as possible. The spectrum between individuals retaining absolute privacy and the public interest is a matter that we in this House discuss time and again in relation to access to data. This is another example of the tensions that arise as we try to strike the right balance between private protection and public interest. I have no doubt that Sir Michael's inquiry will drill down into some of those important issues.

Shaun Woodward: The Bichard inquiry may make various recommendations on data protection, human rights, the collection of information, local intelligence and so on, but they will only be as good as the degree of certainty that individuals are matched to the intelligence held on them. Whatever difficulties may arise in respect of civil liberties, does my hon. Friend agree that it would be a good idea for the Bichard inquiry to consider whether identity cards could have ensured that Huntley was unable to use an alternative identity? That he did so was clearly a deliberate attempt to prevent the police from putting together information about him.

Hazel Blears: My hon. Friend makes an important point. The terms of reference are wide enough to allow Sir Michael to consider recommendations that he might want to apply nationally. We have recently had some good debates about the growth of the use of biometric information in connection with a range of identifiers for passports, driving licences and so on. We want to get as much information as we can to ensure that people who apply under the CRB procedures or who are on the PNC are who they say they are. That is a fundamental requirement for the integrity of the system as a whole.

Tim Loughton: Serious lessons from this case need to be learned, for child protection and for the forthcoming children's legislation, in which we hear that it is proposed to give identity numbers to 11 million children, only some of whom will be vulnerable. That provision will be greatly diluted if we do not have proper intelligence on the potential perpetrators of abuse and crimes against children. From what the Minister said, there is clearly confusion about how intelligence can be shared. She thinks that the guidelines are clear, but the police are confused about how they should be used. Conviction information may be readily available, but local intelligence needs to be shared properly—that is the key to better measures to combat child abuse. As a matter of urgency, will she ensure that it is made absolutely clear what intelligence about potential abusers—many of whom will have no criminal record—can be shared between the proper agencies dealing with child protection? Will she ensure that those findings are fed into the new children's legislation as soon as possible, so that children are protected and we can get better intelligence about the potential perpetrators of violence against them?

Hazel Blears: That is clearly an important part of our considerations. The hon. Gentleman will know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills announced a serious case review by the North East Lincolnshire area child protection committee. One of its terms of reference is to look specifically at how multi-agency working might be improved. Essential to that is the sharing of information. All of us who look at these matters now appreciate that we cannot get the results that we want if we work in silos. Coming together and sharing information is the best way to protect children and make services more effective.
	It concerns me that the data protection legislation can be prayed in aid so that information is not shared as much as I should like. The adoption of proper protocols and safeguards will help to achieve the data protection aims and allow information to be shared. The evidence for that is the fact that police forces and local authorities around the country share information effectively. One of the challenges for the Government is to clarify for people that it is safe and lawful to share information, and to encourage best practice in that respect. The issue is very current and important for us. Clearly, we will take on board any recommendations in the Bichard review that we should do more or change the law. The practice is not widespread, but in some areas the data protection legislation is sometimes used as a blanket inhibition on multi-agency work. It should not be used in that way.

John Denham: I welcome the statement by my hon. Friend that she is preparing a statutory code of practice on data entry into the police national computer. Will she confirm that that will be the first time that intervention powers in the Police Reform Act 2002 have been used to ensure that police performance is brought up to standard? She has implied already that, if things had worked properly, the only charge to appear on the PNC would have been the burglary charge, and that the other allegations would not have appeared. Can she assure me that people such as school caretakers, who are not defined legally as caring for children or being in charge of them, will none the less be subject in future to the enhanced disclosure procedures? If she cannot do that, will she ask Sir Michael Bichard to look at whether enhanced disclosure needs to be extended to those who work closely with, and have access to, children, even though those people are not caring for them or in charge of them?

Hazel Blears: I am happy to confirm that Centrex has been working on preparing the statutory code of practice in this matter. I understand that it is not the first time that a code has been prepared, as a statutory code on the use of firearms by police was issued a few weeks ago. However, my right hon. Friend is right to say that the powers under the Police Reform Act are new and innovative, and I know that he played a fundamental part in taking that legislation through the House. The code of practice will be a great help to us.
	My right hon. Friend asked whether a person applying to be a school caretaker would be required to obtain enhanced disclosure. That is important, but the requirements for enhanced disclosure apply to people who are regularly involved in caring for, training or supervising children, and to those who have sole charge of children. I understand that the Department for Education and Skills considers that caretakers would be required to undertake enhanced disclosure, as they can take the role of supervising children.

Douglas Hogg: Police records are never going to be wholly complete or up to date, so does the Minister agree that those who want to employ people in jobs that entail sensitive proximity to children would be well advised also to seek and follow up references in the traditional manner?

Hazel Blears: The right hon. and learned Gentleman makes a reasonable, common-sense point. Criminal Records Bureau checks can only ever be one part of the jigsaw. Any sensible employer who is seeking to employ people in positions of sensitivity—whether it is around children or vulnerable adults, or with access to huge amounts of money—will obtain and follow up references in the normal course of that employment process. I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for reminding us that the Criminal Records Bureau is only one part of a much wider picture.
	While I am on my feet, I should give some clarification to the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), who asked whether 20 per cent. of people had been refused employment as a result of CRB checks. In a recent survey, one in five employers said that they had used the information in order to refuse employment—the figure therefore relates to one in five organisations, not one in five applicants.

Andrew Miller: My hon. Friend is absolutely correct that the data protection laws are often prayed in aid unreasonably. Agencies are far too cautious and records are destroyed. In this case, it appears—I use that word very carefully because we only know about some of the evidence—that there was a local newspaper report, which was shown on television last night, about a previous charge, but the police did not have adequate records of it. I join the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) in asking that, as a matter of urgency, proper guidance is given in that respect and that, as part of his inquiry, Sir Michael engages in dialogue with the data protection commissioner to find ways in which to strengthen guidance not only to the police, but to other agencies that may provide useful information.

Hazel Blears: Obviously, I cannot comment on the particular case, which will be a matter for Sir Michael's inquiry. However, I should like to remind the House that the inquiry's terms of reference provide that he is not only urgently to inquire into child protection procedures in Humberside police and Cambridgeshire constabulary, but
	"to assess the effectiveness of the relevant intelligence-based record keeping, the vetting practices in those forces since 1995 and information sharing with other agencies."
	The terms of reference thus make it absolutely clear that Sir Michael will examine those very important issues. I note my hon. Friend's comments about urgent guidance and clarification—the whole House would agree that that needs to take place as soon as possible.

Michael Fabricant: The Minister spoke at some length about the inputting of data on to the computer and its timeliness. If the Government are going to place such an additional obligation on local police constabularies, will they be given the necessary resources? If not, we will find that fewer police officers are available to detect crime.
	Given that duplication and triplication may occur when information is put on to a local computer, then has to be re-entered on to a national computer, could not an integrated system save time?

Hazel Blears: The hon. Gentleman raises a fundamental point. The whole purpose of gathering intelligence is to enable our police forces to be more effective in fighting crime. Those matters are not mutually exclusive. The introduction of the national intelligence model, which is now being implemented across forces, is designed to ensure that, in relation to level 1 local crime, level 2 organised crime and level 3 national and international crime, we have a proper business framework for drawing together all the information and evidence that is out there, so that we can target our resources to the best effect and use our police officers smartly and more intelligently. The message to forces is that collecting data is not a bureaucratic burden, but the means by which they get the necessary information to drive their performance and to bear down on reducing and tackling crime.
	In asking about information technology, the hon. Gentleman perhaps inadvertently raises a fundamental point about why we are embarking on our police reform process. As he will know, we have a massive programme called CJIT—criminal justice information technology—to integrate IT solutions across the criminal justice system, including the police and the courts, to ensure that we do not constantly duplicate our information. I understand that it will be some time before we have an integrated court-police interface—they have a slightly better system in Scotland—but we are on the case in terms of developing our own integrated information technology solution.

Tony McWalter: But where the police collect intelligence with a view to a prosecution, it is not at all clear how much of that intelligence should be factored into a computer record. Sometimes it can be tittle-tattle, but in other cases there may be a large number of independent reports that somebody is behaving in an abusive way. Integrating that information is a major difficulty. Will my hon. Friend set her team to consider legislation to that end, independently of the inquiry? We have addressed the issue in relation to antisocial behaviour—why should we not do so in relation to abusive persons?

Hazel Blears: In an information-rich world, an increasing multiplicity of reports is available to us. My hon. Friend makes the important point that that information would be of much more use to us if we learned to handle it in an integrated way. I am encouraged when I see a much better use of information and data during my visits to forces. Some police officers are highly computer literate—certainly, more so than me—and they are beginning to use those tools in a much better way to fight crime.
	As regards legislation, part of Sir Michael's remit is to make recommendations to us of a local or a national nature, and we shall want carefully to consider those recommendations before embarking on further legislation in this area.

Andrew George: Will the Minister ensure that the inquiry will also investigate procedural and organisational failures? In April this year, the Police Complaints Authority upheld 14 detailed complaints from one of my constituents in respect of the investigation by Cambridgeshire constabulary into the killing of her sister, Claire Oldfield-Hampson, in March in Cambridgeshire in 1996. Those complaints clearly identified serious systemic and organisational failures in that constabulary. Will the Minister ensure that the inquiry will consider not only that particular sad and tragic case, but circumstances where other constabularies have had a catalogue of complaints against them?

Hazel Blears: I am not in a position to comment on the case that the hon. Gentleman mentions. However, it is important that as a fundamental part of his inquiry Sir Michael looks generally at the effectiveness of the police's intelligence-based records, the vetting practices that they undertake, and the way in which they share information. The way in which he organises the submissions that he takes in evidence is a matter for him, but I am sure that he will want to consider very carefully the systems that have been put in place and their effectiveness in handling information.

Brian Iddon: The problem is that dangerous people move from one part of the country to another. One such case was the murder of young Ryan Mason in my constituency, who was viciously attacked by a man who then dumped his naked body in a bin bag on Great Lever golf course. The man, who was from another town, had moved in with Ryan's mother. The police already had evidence that he had carried out vicious attacks on two other young children. The police are developing a very powerful database, in which I have taken a great interest, called VISOR—the violent and sex offenders register. I understand that it is being trialled in three parts of the country and is to be rolled out in the new year. In my opinion, had VISOR been running at the time of the attack on Ryan, his life might well have been saved, so can my hon. Friend update us on the stage that it has reached?

Hazel Blears: My hon. Friend makes the important point that people nowadays are more geographically mobile than ever and it is therefore important that forces can use the national computer and their regional databases to track information. He mentioned the VISOR database, which is being developed. I undertake to write to him to give further details of the way in which the trials are proceeding.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Does the Minister agree that the integrity of the Criminal Records Bureau depends on verification of personal details? Following on from the question of the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon), it appears that it is possible to move to different parts of the country, use a different name and evade the checks. A senior police officer in this place suggested to me that instead of—or as well as—using a general credit reference, a specific credit card reference would be more precise and up to date. Will the Minister consider that and ask Sir Michael to look into it?

Hazel Blears: I understand that, in the case of enhanced disclosures, the Criminal Records Bureau makes inquiries of the forces that cover the areas where the applicant has lived in the past five years. There is therefore provision in the Criminal Records Bureau process to try to track back to places where people have lived previously. I undertake to examine the hon. Gentleman's specific suggestion and ascertain whether it has merit and whether we could build it into the process.

Dennis Skinner: Does it not beggar belief that, in this day and age, when we have more police than at any other time in history, they allowed this man Huntley to get a job and escape the net for so long? Yet 20 years ago, the police, with fewer numbers but national priorities, were able to arrest 9,000 miners, nearly every single one of whom had a clean record. They were chucked in the clink, yet the police could not get hold of this man, who had been having sex with under-age girls all over Yorkshire and Humberside. It is time they got their priorities right.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am going to move on.

Business of the House

Oliver Heald: Will the Leader of the House please give us the business for the first week after the Christmas break?

Peter Hain: The business for the week after the Christmas recess will be as follows:
	Monday 5 January—Second Reading of the Traffic Management Bill.
	Tuesday 6 January—Second Reading of the National Insurance Contributions and Statutory Payments Bill.
	Wednesday 7 January—Opposition Day [1st allotted day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.
	Thursday 8 January—Second Reading of the Horserace Betting and Olympic Lottery Bill.
	The provisional business for the following week will be:
	Monday 12 January—Second Reading of the Housing Bill.
	Tuesday 13 January—Opposition Day [2nd allotted day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.
	Wednesday 14 January—Second Reading of the Employment Relations Bill.
	Thursday 15 January—Second Reading of the Human Tissue Bill.
	I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for the first two weeks following the Christmas recess will be:
	Thursday 8 January—Debate on the report from the Public Administration Committee on ministerial accountability and parliamentary questions.
	Thursday 15 January—Debate on the report from the Health Committee on sexual health.
	I should like to wish all hon. Members, and especially the staff of the House, a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Oliver Heald: May I associate myself and my hon. Friends with those remarks? A very merry Christmas to everybody.
	Has the Leader of the House seen the important report of the high ranking Privy Councillor Review Committee on the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001? That highly critical report calls for a separate and distinct body of terrorism legislation and demands several parliamentary debates separate from the debate that renews the 2001 Act. Given the gravity of those issues, will the right hon. Gentleman assure me that he will consider the way in which the matter will be handled on the Floor of the House and tell us either now or, perhaps more reasonably, after Christmas?
	Does the right hon. Gentleman know of the allegation in the Health Service Journal that pressure was put on civil servants to give the Prime Minister's local hospital a three-star rating and an extra £1 million grant when the other local Member of Parliament, the right hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn), was Secretary of State for Health? Surely an independent inquiry should be held into the allegation that health service ratings were manipulated for political purposes. When can we expect a statement on that?
	The Leader of the House announced Second Reading of the Human Tissue Bill. Given the ethical and scientific issues that surround it, and the Government's earlier suggestion that it would be suitable for pre-legislative scrutiny, will the right hon. Gentleman consider whether the measure is appropriate for consideration by a Special Standing Committee, in which evidence could be taken on those important aspects?
	The Leader of the House will recall that, on 27 November, I raised the sitting hours. Subsequently, more than 230 hon. Members have signed early-day motion 262.
	[That this House notes that the revised sitting hours and related arrangements have now been in place for 12 months; believes that there is now sufficient experience of the new arrangements to enable the House to judge what adjustments would be appropriate to enable the business of the House to be conducted more effectively; and calls for an urgent review of the reforms.]
	In the light of that, and given last week's announcement of a questionnaire by the Procedure Committee, will the right hon. Gentleman tell us how he is getting on with setting up a review of the new arrangements?
	Will the Leader of House comment on a modernisation measure—an early Christmas present for Conservative Members? Yesterday at Prime Minister's Question Time, the Leader of the Opposition asked the Prime Minister six questions. Of course, he did not get an answer but that did not surprise us. However, the Prime Minister asked my right hon. and learned Friend five questions. Is that not overwhelming evidence of the need for change and the introduction of Leader of the Opposition's Question Time? My right hon. and learned Friend generously said that he would support that and that he might even allow the Prime Minister more than six questions, if the right hon. Gentleman were ever prepared to answer a single question.

Peter Hain: On the latter point, if the shadow Leader of the House is seriously pressing for a Leader of the Opposition's Question Time, it suggests that the Leader of the Opposition intends to remain in that position for a long time.
	Let us consider the more serious points. The Newton committee review was published today and laid before the House with a written ministerial statement from the Home Secretary. We will issue a statement in response to the report and consider the hon. Gentleman's request.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned the former Secretary of State for Health. Let me make the procedural point that it would have been odd for him not to be involved in commenting on and raising queries about the formative stages of a brand new system of evaluation, especially since the Department of Health was responsible for producing the star ratings at the time. There is an important distinction between asking a question and issuing an instruction. The former Secretary of State asked a question, as he did about several hospital trusts that were introducing the system. Consequently, there were fluctuations—some ratings went up and others went down. Indeed, he asked a question about the hospital trust in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe). I am happy to report that the star rating increased there, too.
	The hon. Gentleman asked whether there would be special procedures, perhaps pre-legislative scrutiny, for the Human Tissue Bill. I am happy to consider that. He made an interesting suggestion about the Bill's suitability for consideration by a Special Standing Committee so that evidence could be taken. I shall look into the matter and write to him about it.
	I noted the 238 names of hon. Members who signed the early-day motion on the hours of the House. I have consulted widely about the new hours. I have seen in my room more than 100 Members of Parliament from the three major parties. In addition, I have talked to individual Members about these matters in the corridors and the Tea Room. I have listened carefully to what everyone has said, and there are a lot of different views. Obviously, there is a large group of people—as illustrated by the early-day motion—who would like the hours to be changed. I very much doubt from the conversations that I have had that a majority would favour going back to the original hours, but there have been suggestions about how the existing hours could be modified and how some of the anomalies and difficulties could be removed. I shall continue to listen, and consider how to take the matter forward.
	The Modernisation Committee has ownership of this issue in the sense that it drew up the report that led to the motion that came to the House, which led to the vote to change the hours. The Committee will want to consider at what point it will start the review that was promised in the motion that was carried by the House for the hours to remain as they are for the rest of this Parliament. I shall consult all hon. Members and others about how we take the matter forward.
	The hon. Gentleman asked for an early Christmas present for the Opposition, and I should be happy to promise him one right now: I wish them every opportunity to spend many long years in opposition. I have already answered his point on whether there should be a Leader of the Opposition's Question Time.

Paul Tyler: May I suggest to the Leader of the House that the issue raised by the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) about the allocation of appropriate Bills to a Special Standing Committee is precisely the kind of issue that ought to be discussed between the parties around the table, as was recommended by the Modernisation Committee and approved by the House? I drew this matter to the attention of the Leader of the House last week.
	May we have a statement as early as possible after the recess from the Secretary of State for Education and Skills on today's Select Committee report on schools funding? This damning report draws two very important conclusions. It says:
	"It was a serious weakness in the Department's strategy to implement the schools' funding changes without knowing in detail how schools would be affected."
	It goes on to say:
	"If the Government has a desire for a greater degree of central control over schools funding, about which we would have serious reservations, it should provide itself with an effective means of exercising that control."
	This report, produced by a Committee with a large Labour majority, makes it quite clear that the schools Minister was guilty of presiding over a complete disaster this year: a £1 billion bungle. He and the Secretary of State blamed local education authorities of all parties—not just Opposition parties—for the way in which they handled the issue, when in fact the blame should have stayed with the Department. Will the Leader of the House ensure that the Secretary of State comes to the House early in the new year, apologises to those local authorities on behalf of his ministerial team and gives us an assurance that this will not happen again in 2004–05?

Peter Hain: On the question of discussions between the hon. Gentleman, the shadow Leader of the House and me on forthcoming matters, this has not been the practice in the past and I do not see any persuasive case for changing the arrangements. As the hon. Gentleman knows, however, I have written to the Chairman of the Liaison Committee about a large number of draft Bills, giving the Chairman and, therefore, all Select Committee Chairmen early notice of the timetable that we envisage for introducing draft Bills for pre-legislative scrutiny. The Chairman of the Liaison Committee very much welcomed that initiative, as did his colleagues on the Committee.
	On schools funding, yes, there was a glitch in the system that caused considerable difficulty, but a package has been put in place by the Secretary of State that will ensure adequate resources for local authorities and provide minimum increases in funding for every school. It will also involve making early announcements, reversing cuts in grant and limiting central spending. All those measures will address the problems that were raised by this episode. The Secretary of State also answers questions regularly in the House when these matters have been raised, and that will continue to be possible. I would like to put this in perspective. Despite those unhappy glitches, the Government are introducing record investment into schools, recruiting thousands of extra teachers, and driving up standards in primary and secondary schools, achieving the highest levels of attainment and investment for decades. The difficulties to which the hon. Gentleman referred, which were unacceptable, should be set against this impressive record of continued educational investment and spending, and the rising standards that result from that.

Alan Meale: The Leader of the House will be aware of the magnificent efforts of our Post Office workers who have delivered record levels of Christmas mail in the last few weeks. He will also be aware that, some months ago, I came to the House and extracted from the Minister for Energy, E-Commerce and Postal Services a guarantee that before any sub-post offices were closed, the local Members of Parliament and local authorities would be consulted. My right hon. Friend will therefore be as alarmed as I was to learn of the announcement this morning of the closure of 11 sub-post offices in my area, without that guarantee having been met. Will he ask his colleagues at the Department of Trade and Industry to invite the chairman of Royal Mail, Mr. Allan Leighton to explain why he has baulked that guarantee? Perhaps it could be suggested to Mr. Leighton that if he spent as much time saving rural and urban post offices as he spends trying to save Leeds United, he would do a better job.

Peter Hain: It is probably easier to save local post offices than it is to save Leeds United in the current circumstances. I am disturbed by the account to which my hon. Friend refers. It is imperative that local Members of Parliament and local councils, as well as the local public who will be affected, should be consulted by the Post Office on any planned closures. That is normally what happens, as I know from my own experience. If my hon. Friend has not been consulted, especially given the large number of closures involved, it is totally unacceptable. I am sure that the chairman of the Post Office will note my hon. Friend's anger about this matter. My hon. Friend will have the opportunity to raise the issue again in the debate on this subject planned for 7 January, and I hope that he takes the opportunity to do so.

Bob Spink: The local transport settlement for 2004–05 was announced in today's Order Paper, which gave notice of a written statement on the matter. Last year, there was an oral statement, which gave hon. Members the opportunity to question the Government on this important matter, particularly given the increased congestion and rail problems in certain areas. May we have a debate early in the new year to enable hon. Members to hold the Government to account on this important issue?

Peter Hain: The hon. Gentleman has the opportunity to apply for an early debate, but I believe that at this moment just before the recess it was absolutely proper to have a written ministerial statement setting all these matters out. I am sure that he will also recognise that we have a very impressive record of extra investment in rail services, local transport schemes and extra bus provision, especially in rural areas. As a result of that investment, 1,500 new trains have come into service since we have been in power, and there has been a 20 per cent. rise in rail passenger journeys—[Interruption.] I hear a few scoffs from Conservative Back Benchers, but let us compare this with their Government's record of cuts in rail investment that led to the absolute shambles and danger to passenger safety that we inherited.

David Winnick: Does my right hon. Friend agree that a very nice Christmas box for Labour Members and for the majority of people in the country would have been an announcement that the Parliament Acts would be used to ensure that the Hunting Bill became law in the lifetime of this Parliament? Is he aware that the Countryside Alliance has produced playing cards with the 50 most dedicated opponents of fox hunting on them? I am pleased to say that I am on that list, but I would like to be higher up.

Peter Hain: I am not sure whether I am on that list, but it would be an honour to be so. I have made our position absolutely clear, both at business questions and elsewhere, on how this matter is to be taken forward, and I do not have anything to add to that.

George Young: The Leader of the House has been pressed on several occasions for a debate on the Procedure Committee report recommending legislation on Parliament square. He has said that that issue needed to be resolved sooner rather than later. That was on 27 November. How late can "soon" be, before "sooner" becomes "later"?

Peter Hain: A number of different agencies are involved, as the right hon. Gentleman understands, such as the Royal Parks Agency, local authorities and the police, and consultations are taking place. I understand the point that he raises; "soon" means soon. I shall seek to address the matter as soon as I can. Equally, he will understand that the Procedure Committee report, which was strongly argued and persuasive, raised important issues and they need to be considered properly rather than prematurely.

Geraldine Smith: The Leader of the House will be aware of the success of the pension credit in helping some of the poorest pensioners in this country. In my constituency, more than 4,000 pensioners have benefited, but I would like a debate early in the new year to consider specifically how to increase take-up of the pension credit and find more ways to encourage pensioners to get the benefits that they are entitled to.

Peter Hain: My hon. Friend raises an important matter. Already, 2.4 million pensioners receive pension credit, which is a big total. I would urge all Members of Parliament to publicise the credit and appeal to local pensioners to contact local pensioner groups to ensure that take-up is even better than it has been, because we need it to be extensive. The credit is a radical improvement in the lives of pensioners who have almost certainly been hard-working for all their working lives, who may have been thrifty and may have a small amount of savings. They have not had support if they received a small widow's pension or a small occupational pension or had modest savings.
	The Government are delivering the pension credit as part of the £9 billion more a year we have spent on support for pensioners since we came to power. It is disgraceful that the Opposition plan to axe the pension credit.

Michael Jack: You may recall, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the time available for questioning the Secretary of State for Defence on the publication of the defence White Paper was curtailed because of pressure of business in the House. Will the Leader of the House look again at providing an opportunity for a debate on defence procurement, because the Secretary of State mentioned in the White Paper, among other things, the possibility of reducing the number of aircraft in service or to be procured?
	There is great uncertainty among the tens of thousands of aerospace workers in the north-west about that announcement and there is a great need for clarification of Government policy on this area. Would the Leader of the House have a look at the matter, please?

Peter Hain: I know of the right hon. Gentleman's close constituency interest in the defence industry, and the long and expert interest he has taken in the issue of defence. I am sure that he will be pleased to know that his request will be accepted. The Secretary of State for Defence plans to have a debate on the White Paper as soon as it is possible to do so. [Interruption.] As soon as it is possible.
	We agree with the right hon. Gentleman: the Government want strong defence for the country, and we want maximum opportunities for British defence-based industries to take advantage of supplying not only our own needs, but overseas contracts, too.

Rob Marris: I note that on 14 January the Employment Relations Bill is due to receive its Second Reading. I wonder whether the Leader of the House might arrange for a statement that day from the relevant Minister on the Government's employment strategy. My understanding of the unemployment figures in the paper today is that more people are employed in the United Kingdom than ever before. However, I understand that some people are suggesting that the Government's programmes of new deals for jobs should be scrapped. Can we have a statement to clarify that issue on the day that the Employment Relations Bill has its Second Reading?

Peter Hain: I will look sympathetically at that, because the employment record of this Government is second to none. There has been a rise in employment of nearly 1.7 million and unemployment has been cut to the lowest for generations. On the question of the new deal, I find it astonishing that the Leader of the Opposition has said:
	"We think the New Deal has been an expensive failure".
	The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) nods in agreement, as I suppose all Conservative Members alongside him are doing. In the constituency of the Leader of the Opposition, Folkestone and Hythe, an extra 650 young people have got jobs as a result of the new deal, and 1,450 people got jobs as a result of the new deal if we take over-25s into account. The role of the new deal in personal mentoring and individual advice is important.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think that we are getting a little way away from next week's business.

Eric Forth: Whatever happened to pre-legislative scrutiny? The Leader of the House will recall that his predecessor but one produced a lot of high falutin' undertakings about how parliamentary life was going to be transformed by pre-legislative scrutiny. However, partly owing to the cock-up of last year's legislative programme and the late start this year, there is not much sign of any serious "pre-leg" scrutiny. Will the Leader of the House tell us how many of the Government Bills to be brought before the House in this year's programme will be subjected to full-blown, effective, proper pre-legislative scrutiny? Is the undertaking that was given to be honoured?

Peter Hain: First, I welcome the right hon. Gentleman back to business questions in a reincarnation of his impressive and energetic parliamentary obstructionism. I think that it adds to the quality of our debates and of the House in general.
	As the right hon. Gentleman knows, a dozen Bills have been announced as draft Bills that will be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny. That is the largest number ever, and I am sure that he will welcome that for obvious reasons. I wrote to the Chairman of the Liaison Committee, as I indicated a few minutes ago, giving the projected timetable so that the Select Committees involved can set up their own programmes of work. They found that very helpful, and I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would wish to take any opportunity to get involved as well.

Keith Vaz: I wonder whether my right hon. Friend is a regular viewer of "EastEnders", or does he feel that being Leader of the House is enough exposure to soaps? May I draw his attention to early-day motion 309 and the case it involves?
	 [That this House notes that Dalip Tahil who plays Dan Ferreira in Eastenders may face removal from Britain for breach of work permit regulations; further notes press reports that he has received a letter from the Home Office rejecting his application to stay and work here; expresses its concern about these reports; and calls upon the Home Secretary to intervene in this case to ensure that Mr Tahil will be allowed to continue in his role not just because he is an excellent actor, and one of the few actors of Asian origin on national television, but also because the Ferreira family with their trials, tribulations and trysts will be left fatherless at this crucial time in all their lives.]
	Dalip Tahil is an internationally renowned actor who faces removal from this country, not in the soap but in real life, because of work permit issues. I raised that matter with the Home Secretary on Tuesday, and he promised that officials would speak to me about it. I have just spoken to Mr. Tahil's solicitor and he has made an application to remain in this country under the highly skilled migrant workers scheme. I do not expect the Leader of the House to give me an answer today, but would he draw the attention of the Home Secretary to the early-day motion so that we can have the meeting that was promised?

Peter Hain: I am sure that the Home Secretary will already have noted my hon. Friend's question, and I know of the close, expert interest he takes in such matters. This is a serious case with a lot of complications and he will understand that I cannot comment on individual cases.
	My hon. Friend asked me about my television viewing habits. I must confess that I have not had time to see an episode of "EastEnders" for a very long time. I was in the humiliating position of answering a question about which two television programmes I saw more than twice a month. I am afraid that they were "The Premiership" and "Newsnight".

Douglas Hogg: Would the right hon. Gentleman please arrange an early debate on the question of detention without trial? That would enable us to press the Government on what they are doing with regard to the nine UK citizens in Guantanamo Bay and enable the Government to make a full statement on the 14 foreign nationals held in the UK under the anti-terrorism legislation. He will know full well that the Newton committee report published today suggests that part 4 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 should be replaced, and expresses grave concern about its powers. In that latter connection, he will remember that he said last week that he would communicate my anxieties to the Home Secretary. Has he done so, and what was the response?

Peter Hain: I have indeed done so, and as I indicated to the shadow Leader of the House a few moments ago, the Government are studying the Newton report very carefully. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is right to express concern about the position of the 14 foreign nationals. Equally, he will understand that the security threat to this country from terrorism from foreign sources is the greatest ever. We have never been in this situation before—obviously the IRA experience was in a different category—and, therefore, we have to take such matters seriously. That is why the powers exist under the 2001 Act to allow us to do so.
	I am sure that, following the dreadful attack on our Istanbul consulate, and the attacks that are constantly being threatened or carried out on British interests across the world, the right hon. and learned Gentleman would want us to be very careful about how we deal with suspects, or people whom we have arrested, and how we keep them in a position where they cannot mount any terrorist attacks.

Wayne David: Will the Leader of the House ensure that there is a debate as soon as possible on the legacy of pit closures in south Wales in the 1980s? Such a debate is vital, because it has recently been suggested that a favour was done for the people of Wales by the devastation of communities right across the coalfield. That statement was made by none other than the Leader of the Opposition, who—believe it or not—is a Welshman.

Peter Hain: I will certainly consider my hon. Friend's request for a debate. It would be interesting to have one, precisely for the reasons that he gave. He is able to apply for a debate himself. I was astonished to read in The Western Mail the statement by the Leader of the Opposition that coal communities had
	"revived very considerably under Margaret Thatcher."
	What planet is he living on? Planet poll tax?

John Wilkinson: Does the Leader of the House recognise the importance of early-day motion 127?
	[That this House calls upon Her Majesty's Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to mark the 70th anniversary of the Soviet-induced famine and genocide in Ukraine; urges it to recognise officially that in 1932–33 the Soviet regime under Stalin employed genocide to destroy opposition in Ukraine; emphasises that it should acknowledge publicly that some seven million Ukrainians were starved to death as a result of the enforced collectivisation of agriculture in Ukraine; reminds it of its duty to condemn any and all attempts to deny or misrepresent the facts about the Ukrainian famine and genocide; insists that it must admit that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office archives reveal that the United Kingdom Government was aware of the scale of genocide and famine in Ukraine in 1932–33 yet chose to remain silent on the issue; asserts that it should state publicly that information about the Ukrainian famine and genocide of 1932–33 was suppressed, distorted, or wiped out by the Soviet authorities and that fully reliable information has only relatively recently become available in Ukraine itself; presses it to direct a comprehensive review of the UK National Curriculum in schools in all matters concerning the Stalin era, especially with regard to the Ukrainian famine and genocide of 1932–33; and declares that it has a moral duty to support a motion, which is to be proposed at the United Nations in November 2003; seeking international recognition that the forced famine of 1932–33 in Ukraine was an act of genocide against the Ukrainian nation.]
	It was signed by 34 hon. Members from both sides of the House, including myself. Those signatures were acquired without canvassing.
	Can Her Majesty's Government find time officially to recognise that the famine was deliberately induced by the artificial policy of collectivisation under Stalin? It was a deliberate act of genocide to wipe out opposition in Ukraine. If Her Majesty's Government could do that, it would be a bold step in support of human rights.

Peter Hain: I respect the hon. Gentleman's reasons for raising this matter, and I pay tribute to him for keeping the issue under public scrutiny. Famine was one of Stalin's most terrible crimes. However, we do not think that the United Nations is the right forum in which to resolve such complex historical issues, even though terrible crimes are involved. I am advised that the Ukrainian Government withdrew a draft United Nations resolution, and instead issued a statement at the United Nations, which was agreed with the Russian Federation among others. We will obviously keep this issue under review.

Russell Brown: After years of dissatisfaction, weeks of deliberation and a certain amount of research, I applied earlier this week, through the good offices of the Speaker, for an Adjournment debate on honours lists. This morning, the Table Office informed me that such a debate could not be held, because such questions are usually referred to the Prime Minister, and he does not answer Adjournment debates. If Back Benchers cannot raise an Adjournment debate on the honours list system, will my right hon. Friend find time in the House for one to be held?

Peter Hain: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me prior notice of his question. I am concerned that he should have the opportunity to apply for a debate on the honours system and issues connected with it. It is a proper matter to discuss in the House. The Table Office quite properly advised him that the Prime Minister does not do Adjournment debates, and there is no procedure for a request for an Adjournment debate to the Prime Minister.

Oliver Heald: Modernisation.

Peter Hain: If the hon. Gentleman can wait for it.
	I am sure that there is a way of resolving this problem. I shall discuss with No. 10 whether a Cabinet Office Minister could answer any such debate should my hon. Friend be successful in applying for one.
	I take this opportunity to encourage all hon. Members to do what I have written to Welsh Members of all parties encouraging them to do: to put forward names for honours to be considered by the relevant committees. Many people do fantastic voluntary work in our communities. They are the local heroes and heroines of our communities, and they make up the life of our country and contribute such a lot. They should be in pole position for honours. There should be more nominees, and I hope that all Members will put in their nominations.

Patsy Calton: May I add my request for a debate on the botched and sham consultation procedures used by the Post Office for their closure programme? Yesterday, I was supposed to receive a special delivery package to inform me about closures in my constituency, but it was lost in the post, as was that of the hon. Member for Stockport (Ms Coffey). To lose one special delivery package could be considered a misfortune, but to lose two looks like carelessness. A copy has turned up today, but the clock is ticking on this consultation, which will end on 27 January. That is not six weeks from today or yesterday.
	Given the timing of the start of this exercise over Christmas, will the Leader of the House support my request for an extension to the consultation period in my area, and for proper consideration of the needs of all our local communities based around post offices?

Peter Hain: Given the number of questions that have been raised with me about post office closures, the Post Office must clearly think carefully about how it proceeds, especially about its consultations with local Members of Parliament. I replied to my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale) about his situation. It is imperative that Members of Parliament are properly advised and fully involved. I am sure that the chairman of the Post Office will want to consider carefully the points that the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend have made.

Brian Iddon: The only day when my constituents can get down from my constituency to London, take the Line of Route tour and enjoy the workings of the House is a Monday. This year for the first time I am unable to book our sixth-form students on to the Line of Route on a Monday, because they will have taken their A-levels by the time a slot is available. My right hon. Friend may be surprised to learn that the Line of Route tour is booked up until late June or early July. Will he ask the House authorities to look into this problem, especially for constituencies further away from London, and to try to resolve the difficulties for Members of Parliament who, like me, have constituencies some distance from London? Our constituents do not believe that we cannot arrange visits to the House.

Peter Hain: I am grateful that my hon. Friend has raised this matter with me. I, too, have been concerned about this situation. My constituency is almost 200 miles away, and I have had difficulty agreeing dates with local schools and others who want to visit the House and take advantage of the Line of Route tour. I have asked the Serjeant at Arms to look into this problem, because I think that we should have more flexibility and more structuring of the arrangements so that Members from London and nearby are encouraged to come in the earlier part of the day, and to begin Line of Route tours much earlier on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday than they currently do. The staffing and cost implications need to be considered, which is why the Serjeant is looking into the problem at my request. We could consider having extra opportunities on Fridays. I am sure that London Members would be willing to be allocated earlier times, especially on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, so that Members such as my hon. Friend and others with constituencies outside London can take advantage of the Line of Route.
	This essential service is provided for our constituents to visit the Palace. As we all know, it is very popular, and it helps to keep the House of Commons and Parliament as a whole closely connected to the citizens who put us here. I am involved with fellow members of the Modernisation Committee in considering a range of issues about reconnecting the House of Commons with voters. They include not just the Line of Route but a proper reception centre, so that visitors can be treated properly and admitted with some dignity and with decent security. That is very much on our agenda.

Nigel Evans: One of the unintended consequences of the new hours is the loss of our opportunity to bring our constituents here on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. The Leader of the House tells us that he is having a "big conversation" with Members about the hours. What we do know is that they simply are not working. We cannot be in two places at once.
	I remember how things were when I was elected in 1992. I am not saying that we should return to all-night sittings, which were clearly ridiculous, but the new hours have knocked the stuffing out of this place. I know the Leader of the House likes collecting jobs; well, there is a third job for him, now: to play Santa Claus, and ensure that the Modernisation Committee presents proposals early in January so we can think about the hours that we need to make this a proper working Parliament.

Peter Hain: I understand and respect the hon. Gentleman's view. As I have discovered, there is an honest difference of opinion between Members of all parties. It is my job to try to find the centre of gravity, and I will do that.
	There is no prospect of an urgent review by the end of January. The Procedure Committee is sending Members a questionnaire, and I shall be consulting them to try to find a consensus in an attempt to deal with some of the anomalies identified by the hon. Gentleman—but we should not forget what it was like in the past. He mentioned all-night sittings, and I agree with him that we do not want to return to those. Nor do we want to return to many of the other difficulties, inconveniences and anomalies that the old hours involved. We need to take the necessary time to ensure that we act with care and consideration on this.

David Cairns: My right hon. Friend began, appropriately, by wishing everyone a happy Christmas and a happy new year. Will he now join me in wishing members of the British Jewish community a happy Chanukah? In that connection, I draw his attention to early-day motion 123,
	[That this House condemns the terrorist, anti-Semitic attacks on the two Istanbul synagogues 'Oasis of Peace' and 'Beth Israel' killing 25 people and injuring over 300; also condemns the arson attack which destroyed a Jewish school near Paris on the same morning; notes that these attacks were preceded by deadly anti-Semitic terrorist attacks on synagogues and Jewish community centres in Casablanca and Tunisia; recalls the description of Jews by German MP Martin Hohman as 'guilty people' and a 'nation of perpetrators'; records the anti-Semitic speech of the outgoing Malaysian Prime Minister; recognises that the last three years have seen a dramatic increase in anti-Semitic incidents against the UK Jewish community and the rise in support for the BNP; notes that there is no conflict between Judaism, Islam and Christianity; rejects those who cynically exploit differences of opinion over Israel and Palestine to promote anti-semitism; and calls upon the Government to institute a zero tolerance policy to combat anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and racism in all its forms by raising the issue at the UN and in Europe and encouraging firm action by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service.]
	The motion outlines in horrific detail the rapid rise of anti-Semitism and increase in anti-Semitic attacks throughout Europe and beyond, citing the two bombs in Istanbul which killed 25 people and injured 300 more. Early in the new year, may we have a debate on the rise of anti-Semitism throughout Europe and in the United Kingdom in particular, so that all Members can say to the decent, law-abiding Jewish community in this country that anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic attacks are intolerable? In the past they have been allowed to go unchecked, and we know where that has led. A message must be sent to the Jewish community that the Government take this extremely seriously: they must be absolutely confident of that.

Peter Hain: I am pleased to join my hon. Friend in wishing all members of the Jewish community a happy Chanukah. I am glad that he has given me the opportunity to do so.
	Like my hon. Friend and, I am sure, all other Members, I am strongly committed to rooting out and confronting anti-Semitism and racism of all kinds wherever they appear, in this country or in Europe as a whole. It is essential that we confront the problem and do not duck it, whether in pub conversations, in local communities, in schools or in more threatening contexts. The rising tide of anti-Semitism throughout European Union countries, including Britain, is extremely disturbing. We have learned the bitter lesson of history that unless we confront anti-Semitism uncompromisingly, we shall reap a bitter harvest.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: May I return to the subject of our sitting hours? May I make a strong plea for the matter to be considered by Members of this Parliament, who have experience of the workings of the House of Commons? New Members will not have had the benefit of that experience.
	One reason why I think the hours should be reformed is timetabling. Let me say, at the risk of boring the House, that I played a part in the progress of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill. It took a whole year to complete the passage of a major section of that Bill, dealing with important infrastructure projects such as terminal 5. It was not discussed in the House at all, and will have to be discussed in another place.
	If our sittings ended at 9 pm every night, we would have an extra five hours. I believe that that would result in much less timetabling. It is a good example of the way in which the House ought to work. I urge the Leader of the House to consider the matter sooner rather than later.

Peter Hain: The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill is a bad example of good programming and good timetabling, and lessons have been learned from it. As the hon. Gentleman will know, it is virtually alone in that respect. There are many good examples, such as the Communications Bill and the Hunting Bill, which were mentioned only recently in the Modernisation Committee's report on programming. After a debate on the Floor of the House following the publication of that report, the House agreed to the arrangements for timetabling.
	The hon. Gentleman cannot blame the sitting hours for the difficulties with the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill, which were caused by the way in which the Standing Committee operated. I hope they will not be repeated. He pulled a 9 o'clock finish out of the hat, as it were. Having had detailed discussions with scores of Members in all parties, I can tell him that just about everyone has his or her own suggestion of a starting or finishing time for the House and for Committees. It is because I want to find a consensus that the Modernisation Committee will, in due course, wish to consider the matter. I will make an announcement to the House next year, when I am in a position to do so.

Clive Betts: Can the Leader of the House give us an idea of when the Second Reading of the Pensions Bill is likely to take place? It contains worthwhile proposals to guarantee that when firms become insolvent, their employees will keep their pensions.
	Many people will not have a particularly happy time this Christmas. UEF in Sheffield and Hydrotools have already gone into liquidation, and employees' pension prospects have been substantially worsened as a result. Will the Leader of the House ask the Minister who presents the Pensions Bill to pay particular attention to early-day motion 200, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan)?
	[That this House acknowledges the plight of workers who have lost their final salary occupation pensions schemes through company insolvency despite being promised by firms and successive governments that their pensions were guaranteed and in many cases having been compelled to join their scheme as a condition of employment; further believes that the Government has a moral and possibly legal obligation to help these workers who have been stripped of their pensions through no fault of their own; and further calls upon the Government to introduce legislation to compensate victims of this singular injustice.]
	The motion seeks to extend pension protection to workers whose firms have gone into liquidation in the past, as well as those who will have unhappy experiences in the future.

Peter Hain: I well understand why my hon. Friend has drawn my attention to that important motion, signed by many Members. If I were a Back Bencher, I would have been inclined to sign it myself. I believe that some 44,000 workers—including employees of ASW in Cardiff, with which I have dealt as Secretary of State for Wales—have received disgraceful and scandalous treatment. Some have given 30 years' service and, having built up their pensions, have been robbed of them. That is why we are introducing legislation providing a pensions protection fund to prevent this from ever happening again. Discussions are being held with the Minister for Pensions to establish whether any assistance can be given to workers in this desperate predicament.

Colin Challen: Even at this late hour, may I assure my right hon. Friend that the only direction in which Leeds United is going is up?
	Did my right hon. Friend see last week's CBI figures, which showed that capital intensity in each hour worked in the United Kingdom economy is 60 per cent. less than in the United States, 32 per cent. less than in Germany and 25 per cent. less than in France? Does that not tell us that the real British disease in UK productivity is the short-termism and conservatism of British capital, and the attitude to British industry? May we have a debate on UK productivity, so that we can expose the problem we have had to experience for so long?

Peter Hain: After last night's defeat of Chelsea, my football club, I will not trade rival greetings with my hon. Friend. As for productivity rates, if he looks at the evidence in the Red Book and at the wider picture, he will see that the gap between British and German and French manufacturing, in particular, is closing rapidly. We still have a long way to go to catch up with the United States, but there have been improvements, and all our measures are designed to produce further improvements. The picture is not as bleak as he paints it; it is getting better, and I would expect him to welcome that.

Alan Whitehead: Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate as soon as we return from the Christmas recess on the suggestion made by the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs that further reform of the House of Lords, incorporating an elected element, may now be on the agenda? Does my right hon. Friend agree that an early debate on this possibility may well shed light on forthcoming legislation on the removal of hereditary peers and inform the associated discussion? An early debate could be very useful in the context of that legislation.

Peter Hain: I cannot promise my hon. Friend an early debate, but he is of course free to apply for one. However, I can confirm that the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs said the following in The Independent of 15 December:
	"I am conveying the message as strongly as I can that the door is open and I'm keen for people to go through it. What that will involve depends upon having a proper discussion about it."
	In other words, he is open to ideas about a final stage of House of Lords reform. The priority must now be to deal with the anomaly of the 92 hereditaries, and to establish a proper, independent appointments system. He also said the following in The Observer of 7 December:
	"We do not say the changes we make in this House of Lords Bill represent the end of the road."
	He is clearly indicating that if a consensus can be assembled—he will consult the Joint Committee on House of Lords Reform during the passage of the current legislation—we can establish whether the House can reach agreement on a proposal involving at least an elected element. As my hon. Friend knows, I—presumably like him—voted for a 100 per cent. elected House of Lords, and for all the other proposals involving an elected element.

Brian White: May I draw the attention of the Leader of the House to early-day motion 290?
	[That this House congratulates the research team at The Open University led by Professor Colin Pillinger for their outstanding work on the Beagle 2 project which is scheduled to touch down on Mars on Christmas Day; notes that because this work was conducted in an open access institution, the research underpinning this project will bring benefit to far more students from a wider spectrum of backgrounds and in far quicker time than if it was conducted in a traditional selective-entry university; and calls on the Government to ensure that the special nature of The Open University and the unique access to excellence it provides should be recognised when considering research funding allocation in the future.]
	Will he draw to his colleagues' attention the need to capitalise on this British success story, which is based on academic research and industry working in partnership, and to ensure that we get more science graduates from universities?

Peter Hain: I am happy to join my hon. Friend—I know that he has a constituency interest in this matter—and the whole House in congratulating Professor Pillinger and his team. The Beagle 2 project is very impressive, and the Open university makes a unique contribution to teaching and research. Current Government funding stands at £136 million for teaching and £5.6 million for research—an indication of our confidence in the Open university's role.

Gordon Prentice: May I say how much I am enjoying the seminars, teach-ins and Powerpoint presentations being laid on by our mutual friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills concerning top-up fees? That is a marvellous innovation, but may I draw the attention of the Leader of the House to early-day motion 322?
	[That this House congratulates Paul Martin, the new Prime Minister of Canada, on his decision to make democratic reform of the House of Commons a top priority; notes that the reforms are designed to strengthen the roles of individual parliamentarians and committees with an increased number of free votes; further notes that Ministers will be required actively to seek the support of their colleagues who are to be involved early in the policy development process; contrasts this approach to the way in which key policy initiatives are brought forward at Westminster; and urges the British Prime Minister to visit his counterpart's website http://wwwl.pm.gc.ca/eng/dem—reform.asp for insights and inspiration.]
	Really innovative things are happening in our sister Parliament in Ottawa, where Government Back Benchers are being involved in policy development at an early stage, and matters are not being sprung on them. As a result, there will be a greater number of free votes. He should look seriously at what is happening there.

Peter Hain: I would certainly be happy to look at the Canadian experience. Indeed, the Modernisation Committee's current project, to which I referred earlier, concerns how we are to reconnect Parliament to the people—an issue that should concern us on a cross-party basis.
	I hope that the excellent presentations by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills are persuading my hon. Friend of the Government's policy on top-up fees. Of course, a number of free votes are allowed in the House by custom and practice. I am sure that he will also praise the Government for introducing pre-legislative scrutiny; indeed, a dozen Bills in the current Session have been subject to such scrutiny. That is a big advance on the old situation, so doubtless he will welcome it.

Joan Ruddock: On sitting hours, I should point out to my right hon. Friend that Members of this place have always had to be in two places at once, and that it may just be that the silent majority—which includes me—feel that the current hours are working well. On visits to this House and London Members, his suggestions are very acceptable, but will he investigate the question of the closing of the doors of this Chamber? I brought constituents to the House on Monday evening, but because it got up early the Chamber was closed, even though the refreshment rooms were still open. Does he think that appropriate, or does he agree with me that if London Members are to be helpful in this regard, we should be able to bring our constituents into the Chamber at their convenience, in the evening?

Peter Hain: I am concerned to hear that that was my hon. Friend's experience on Monday. Several Members have raised this issue with me; indeed, I referred to it recently during business questions. I had thought that, as a result, the authorities had made it common practice to leave the Chamber open in the evening for a time, so that Members representing constituencies throughout the country—not just London ones—could bring in their guests. It is an experience that constituents enjoy.
	I welcome what my hon. Friend said about hours. A substantial number of Members are very satisfied with the broad parameters of the current hours settlement, for which I myself voted. There is no clear agreement that I have been able to discern so far; indeed, the early-day motion referred to earlier calls not for a specific alternative, but for a review, which is precisely what the Modernisation Committee will undertake. We would be very unwise to accept any demand simply to rush into a reversion to the old hours. The original hours gave rise to a lot of complaints, and as my hon. Friend says, Members have always had to be in more than one place at one time, given the busy lives that we lead.

Point of Order

Adrian Bailey: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I bring to your attention Division No. 16, at column 1674 of yesterday's Hansard? I am recorded as having voted in both the Aye Lobby and the No Lobby. I must confess that there have been occasions since coming to this place when I felt as if I were going round in circles. However, I never expected that to be recorded, particularly given that on this occasion, I am certain that I voted in the No Lobby only. I furthermore note that a number of Labour colleagues, including three Ministers and a Whip, have been recorded as having voted in both the Aye Lobby and the No Lobby. May I ask that the matter be investigated and an accurate record be presented, not least in the interest of ministerial longevity? Perhaps we should also investigate whether the proximity to Christmas and its festivities has impacted on the operational effectiveness of our recording and printing processes.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is quite right to raise this matter with the Chair. Several Members have been wrongly recorded in Hansard as having voted for the reasoned amendment on Second Reading of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants Etc.) Bill yesterday. A corrected Division list has now been placed in the Vote Office, and the result of the Division will be reprinted in Hansard this evening. The incident will be fully investigated. I regret that embarrassment may have been caused to those right hon. and hon. Members affected by this error.

NORTHERN IRELAND GRAND COMMITTEE

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Orders Nos. 114 (Northern Ireland Grand Committee (legislative proposals and other matters relating exclusively to Northern Ireland)) and 116 (Northern Ireland Grand Committee (sittings))
	That (1) The proposal for a draft Rates (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 2004 be referred to the Northern Ireland Grand Committee; (2) the Committee shall meet at Westminster on Thursday 15th January at half-past Two o'clock; and (3) at that sitting (a) the Committee shall consider the legislative proposal referred to it under paragraph (1) above; and (b) the Chairman shall interrupt proceedings at Five o'clock; and (c) at the conclusion of those proceedings, a motion for the adjournment of the Committee may be made by a Minister of the Crown, pursuant to paragraph (5) of Standing Order No. 116 (Northern Ireland Grand Committee (sittings)).—[Vernon Coaker.]
	Question agreed to.

Christmas Adjournment

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Vernon Coaker.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Before I call the first speaker, I remind the House that Mr. Speaker has placed a 15-minute limit on all Back-Bench speeches, which will operate from the beginning of the debate.

Rudi Vis: I raised the case of Cyprus in Adjournment debates on 22 May 2003 and 17 July 2003, and countless times before that, and I return to the subject again today. On 17 July, I said that on the surface it appeared that many changes had taken place during recent months but that the reality was different. Unfortunately, my analysis now is that the situation appears to be much the same today.
	Perhaps, only for a moment, about a month ago, it seemed as if there might be a glimmer of hope that Cyprus might join the European Union as a united island on 1 May 2004. Sadly, on 11 November 2003, the putative leader of the occupied territory of Cyprus, Mr. Denktash, commenting on the forthcoming so-called elections in the occupied territory scheduled for 14 December, said in an interview with Reuters:
	"If the opposition win by a great majority it means that the people have lost confidence in me so why should I stay here and waste my time? But I know that will not happen."
	Who are the opposition to whom he referred? The simple reality is that they are the Turkish Cypriots who want to join the EU with their Greek Cypriot counterparts. But who are those on the side of the Turkish Cypriot Mr. Denktash? A people imported from Turkey who, over the past 29 and a half years, have totally changed the demography of the occupied territory and were given voting rights in that somewhat dodgy election. The outcome of the so-called elective poll was deadlock, and it now seems highly unlikely that the occupied territory will be able to accede to the EU with its Greek Cypriot republican counterparts.
	Although the Turkish Cypriot pro-EU side won slightly more of the vote last Sunday, the electoral system is complex enough to have given both sides 25 seats. It is equally important that if no coalition can be formed, new so-called elections must be held in mid-February 2004. Even worse, if the pro-EU side were to win a re-ballot, it is now too late for Cyprus to join as a united island. However, I am sure that President Papadopoulos of Cyprus will continue to do his utmost to find a solution.
	There are other complications. Many people, including me, believe that the real power over the occupied territory lies in Ankara, and particularly with the Turkish Prime Minister, Mr. Erdogan. As the Minister is aware, Mr. Erdogan visited the occupied territory on 15 November, when he announced his total support of Mr. Denktash's stance. Such an endorsement, of course, reveals the fact that at present Mr. Erdogan rejects the Annan plan. The Foreign Minister of the Republic of Cyprus, Mr. Iacovou, described the Erdogan visit as "completely illegal and condemnable", and he wondered what now must be in the minds of the foreign mediators who have constantly attributed good will to Mr. Erdogan.
	Indeed, the European Commission, in its regular annual report on Turkey, identified a "serious obstacle" to Turkish hopes of starting formal accession talks with the EU if no settlement is reached over the divided island of Cyprus. The report says:
	"The absence of a settlement could become a serious obstacle to Turkey's aspirations".
	At present, the Government, like previous Governments, remain convinced that Turkey is fast becoming a healthy parliamentary democracy. I do not understand or agree with that blinkered view, in relation not only to Cyprus but to other major problems in Turkey.
	Turkey has indeed started on ambitious reforms, but very few of them, so far as I can see, are being, or have been, implemented. I therefore ask my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House to convey again to our Foreign Secretary and other Ministers that I, and many of my colleagues in the House, want real changes to be implemented in Turkey in practice for a considerable time, and a proper settlement in Cyprus, before even contemplating allowing Turkey to commence accession negotiations.

Paul Tyler: I am glad to contribute to this debate. Unusually, I want to raise an issue of considerable importance to my constituency and one special family in it, but I think that the issue will be of concern to every hon. Member.
	During the statement by the Secretary of State for Defence last Thursday, I listened with growing incredulity. He made a tiny reference to the National Audit Office report, published that morning, and to the Ministry's own report, entitled "Operations in Iraq: Lessons for the Future". His Conservative opposite number also ignored evidence of serious inadequacies. In the course of nearly 30 minutes of exchanges between the two Front Benchers, no hard evidence was given about the serious equipment shortfalls that were apparent from the reports. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford (Mr. Keetch) was present and made a brief reference to the subject.
	On Monday, there was another exchange about the NAO report, but the Secretary of State again attempted to play down the significance of detailed findings of mistakes and failures in his area of responsibility. This is more than a theoretical, logistics problem: it was and is a matter of life and death, as in the tragic case of Sergeant Steven Roberts from Wadebridge in my constituency.
	Sergeant Roberts was the first British fatality in Iraq. He was shot during a confrontation with Iraqi dissidents on 24 March. There were several mysteries about the circumstances of the attack and his fatal wounds, and on behalf of his widow, his mother and his family, I have been seeking answers in three specific areas of concern ever since. I reiterated my inquiries in parliamentary questions last week, and in a debate that I initiated in Westminster Hall. They are as follows. First, why was Sergeant Roberts not wearing appropriate enhanced combat body armour? Was he ordered to pass on his reinforced flak jacket to other troops thought to be more vulnerable? Secondly, exactly who fired the fatal shot or shots? Thirdly, did Sergeant Roberts's weapon perform correctly?
	The report summary sent by the casualty visiting officer on behalf of the Ministry of Defence last week to Mrs Roberts states the conclusions with stark and tragic simplicity:
	"During the course of enquiries it became apparent that Enhanced Combat Body Armour (ECBA) had been issued and then withdrawn from Sgt. Roberts. An issue/withdrawal sheet proving that Sgt Roberts had been provided with full body armour prior to deploying to the Gulf, and its subsequent withdrawal, has been recovered. The ECBA incorporated a cover with pockets front and rear for protective plates and included the required filler and protective plates.
	However, the ECBA was withdrawn as 2 Royal Tank Regiment Battle Group (2 RTR BG) were short of 300 sets therefore the CO, having considered all options, deemed it necessary that dismounted Infantry soldiers had the ECBA protection and therefore ordered its redistribution. This left Sgt Roberts with Combat Body Armour (CBA), which is a temperate cover (not designed to house ceramic plates)."
	I am sorry to have to repeat all that in full, but obviously the document has not been published; it has been made available to me by Mrs. Roberts and the family. It went on:
	"To determine if Sgt Roberts would have survived had he been wearing the appropriate issue ECBA with protective plates, enquiries were established with the Defence Clothing Integrated Project Team (DCIPT) who provided details of the testing and procurement of ECBA. In essence the ECBA cover provides no protection, but is designed to house High Velocity (HV) plates front and rear to cover the heart and aorta. The inner is for fragmentation protection only and the HV ceramic plates are designed to defeat a NATO ball or tracer 7.62mm round at 50 metres. However, experience suggests that there is a very high probability, greater than 90%, that such a bullet would be defeated at 10 metres or less.
	This statistical data was examined and considered by a Consultant Forensic Scientist who agreed with the specifications and protective properties of the HV plates.
	A reconstruction was conducted under the direction of a Forensic Pathologist in consultation with evidence of the Consultant Forensic Scientist and their findings indicate that . . . The ceramic plate insert would have covered the entry wound site upon the front of the centre of the chest of Sgt Roberts. This was calculated by examination of post-mortem photographs, transposition of coveralls worn by Sgt Roberts at the time of his death compared against measurements taken at post-mortem.
	Taking this into consideration with the protective properties of the HV plates, both the Forensic Pathologist and Consultant Forensic Scientist concluded that had Sgt Roberts been wearing ECBA with the protective plates correctly fitted at the time of shooting, the 7.62mm tracer round that struck him in the centre of his chest and ultimately killed him, would have been defeated."
	It also states:
	"The Forensic Pathologist also expressed the opinion that Sgt Roberts would have survived the second injury to his abdomen assuming appropriate medical assistance had been provided."
	I am sure that every hon. Member can anticipate the reaction of his widow and family on receiving that news just before Christmas.
	The NAO report was presented to the House last week and reported a very specific finding under the heading "ECBA" :
	"Doctrinally, the Department only intended to issue Enhanced Combat Body Armour for peace-keeping operations, for which the Department already held approximately 30,000 sets. These included 690 desert pattern covers, which were increased by 49,000 sets for operations and a further 31,500 sets for sustainability. 23,700 pairs of armour plates were also contracted, to supplement the 16,000 pairs already in service. The delivery deadline for items was set at 4 April 2003. The cost per soldier (cover, pairs of plates and filler) is £167.70, with total spending on body armour amounting to £2,954,300 (excluding the contracts for equipping the sustaining forces for Operation TELIC 2).
	21,759 covers and 32,581 pairs of plates were issued into the supply chain by 24 March 2003. However, the Department's Defence Clothing Integrated Project Team estimated that approximately 200,000 sets had been issued since the Kosovo campaign in 1999, greatly exceeding the theoretical requirement, but these seem to have disappeared."
	The Ministry of Defence prides itself on its audit trail on all equipment. How can the NAO report to the House that 200,000 sets seem to have disappeared, months afterwards? I find that extraordinary.
	The NAO report continued:
	"The Team questioned whether items should, therefore, be issued as part of an individual's personal entitlement for which they would be held accountable.
	Despite these efforts, insufficient numbers were distributed in-theatre, largely as a result of difficulties with asset-tracking and distribution."
	The Ministry of Defence's own report, which examined its own proceedings, said:
	"Enhanced Combat Body Armour provided personnel with significant levels of protection. Initial analysis of data from the operation by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) has indicated that body armour reduced the number of US forces killed in action from torso wounds by at least 50 per cent. (possibly up to 90 per cent.), and those killed in action overall by over 20 per cent. (possibly up to 32 per cent.). Although data was not available to conduct an analysis for UK soldiers, the results can be regarded as indicative."
	In other words, Sergeant Roberts may not have been alone in being denied proper protection—critically so, in his case.
	In chapter 8, the Ministry's report repeated the NAO criticisms of late delivery and accuracy of distribution of ECBA. The inevitable conclusion must be that Ministry of Defence incompetence, or inadequate preparations, despite the very long build-up before hostilities began, led to an entirely avoidable death in the case of Sergeant Steve Roberts. Faced with that irrefutable evidence, one can only dimly imagine the added trauma faced by his widow, his mother and his family.
	The second question that arises is who fired the fatal shot. Immediately after the tragic events of 24 March, Sergeant Roberts's family received a sympathetic and supportive letter from a senior officer at the battlegroup headquarters of the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment. He wrote of the
	"terrible shock to the Regiment and to his many friends".
	He went on to say that
	"it would appear that he was killed during an assault by an Iraqi Militant. Steve fired his pistol in self defence but the rounds failed to stop the man. In an attempt to help, one of the other commanders fired at the assailant killing him. Tragically, Steve was also hit."
	That leaves in the air the uncomfortable possibility that he could have been killed by "friendly fire". That point has still not been clarified, despite my attempts to obtain an explanation from the Ministry of Defence. In the first awful shock of their loss, the family did not recognise the potential alternative interpretations of that last sentence—that it was a stray bullet from his colleague that caused Sergeant Roberts's fatal wound. Was it yet another case of friendly fire? In order to dispel that dreadful idea, I am still asking Ministers for an explanation. To this day, to my knowledge, the family have been given no explicit assurance on that aspect of the confused events of 24 March.
	The final question is whether Sergeant Roberts's weapon malfunctioned. The investigation report from the Ministry, sent last week to Mrs. Roberts, includes a reference to tests of Sergeant Roberts's weapon:
	"Further ballistic tests on Sgt Roberts' pistol have yet to be completed. Tests that have been undertaken on the weapon show . . . It was serviceable prior to deployment . . . Following the shooting two faults that might have contributed to a stoppage were identified; a tripping lever incorrectly chamfered and a stiff tripping lever plunger. In addition, the frame was fractured at the locking lever recess.
	It is worthy of note that prior to this inspection the pistol was re-issued to a Staff Sergeant and a Corporal, both with 2 RTR, who did not experience any difficulty with the weapon, but did not fire it."
	Again, that has worrying implications. It would seem to imply that there was no test of the pistol before it was reissued. The statement that those using it did not experience any difficulty hardly reassures his family or the rest of us, as it also states that they did not fire it.
	What conclusions can we reach? Those are the facts, as far as the family have been made aware of them. Sergeant Roberts was a very brave man, doing his duty for his country. Those who serve in the armed forces on our behalf know the dangers that they face. Tragic mistakes are an inevitable feature of all hostilities, however sophisticated the technology may become. But—and it is a big but—his widow and family are naturally devastated by that information, dragged out of the Ministry of Defence after eight long months of waiting and worrying. I believe that they are entitled to expect better.
	Mrs. Roberts has told me that she wants to be absolutely sure that such awful mistakes can never happen again. She wants to be certain that no other family will be similarly, and unnecessarily, bereaved. I do not expect the Minister this afternoon to be able to offer comfort and reassurance to that family. However, the very least the Secretary of State should do is to agree that I should bring Mrs. Roberts, and other members of Sergeant Roberts's immediate family, to meet him. Then, perhaps, the family will at last have the consolation that some small good can come out of that terrible tragedy. Those who serve us in the armed forces, and their families, are entitled to know that Ministers are on their side and that they will take seriously the lessons of that unnecessary tragedy.
	I express my good wishes for Christmas to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to other colleagues, and I hope that we can agree that a family who have been so tragically and unnecessarily bereaved should receive that message, at Christmas, from the Secretary of State.

Alan Hurst: I take the opportunity of this debate to raise an issue that was raised earlier this week—the White Paper on the future of air transport and the statement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport on Tuesday. All hon. Members with an airport in or near their division came to hear the statement with some trepidation. Some were greatly relieved, and those who represent constituencies in north Kent will have been greatly relieved that the cloud that hung over Cliffe was finally dispersed. There were those of us who thought that Cliffe was a red herring and that there was no realistic prospect of the proposal ever being moved forward. Indeed, all of us would say that that was right and that Cliffe should not have been chosen. There were so many environmental and heritage arguments for not in any circumstances contemplating putting a major airport on the Cliffe marshes that that option was rightly dismissed.
	Those from areas with other airport facilities, in particular Heathrow and Gatwick, at first breathed a sigh of relief, but on contemplation and consideration of what was said realised that the cloud was not lifted from them. The prospect may have been put a little further into the future, but it is still there, and will be an ever-ready prospect for some time to come.
	One place did not even have the privilege and benefit of looking into the future and saying, "Not yet." That was Stansted. I have the privilege of representing a constituency close to Stansted, which is in the constituency of the Chairman of Ways and Means. The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald), who will speak for the Opposition today, is also geographically close to the proposed site.
	Hon. Members will not be surprised to hear that local opposition to the proposal is almost unanimous. I know of a certain Australian writer who occasionally delivers pieces in national newspapers about how much she welcomes the fact that this monstrosity is a few miles down the road rather than next door. Not everyone who lives in the area has sufficient financial resources to move away with ease and profit, if the proposals come to pass.
	Stansted is in the strangely named district council of Uttlesford, which undertook a referendum in which the turnout was higher than that at the last general election. Of the votes recorded—again the number was higher than in any parliamentary constituency, at least in modern times—89 per cent. were against the proposal and 11 per cent. were in favour. Uttlesford covers a vast area from close to the airport site to many miles further away. That underlines the extent of the opposition to the proposal.
	The local authorities are also united. I am not an expert on Hertfordshire local authorities, but I suspect that they are opposed. Certainly Essex county council is opposed on a tri-partisan basis. Uttlesford district council, which was formerly Conservative controlled and is now Liberal controlled, has been completely opposed in both phases. Braintree district council, which was formerly Labour controlled but is regrettably now Conservative controlled, has been united in opposition to the extension in both phases.
	What is the position? At present there are about 19 million passengers going through Stansted airport. Some Members may have travelled on those flights. The most incredible bargains imaginable are offered. My constituency assistant, who comes from Ayrshire, regularly travels back to see her relatives for about £17 return. Frankly, that is a ludicrous price. It is almost as expensive to travel from Braintree to London as it is from Stansted to Ayrshire and back. I am told that some of the flights are valued at £1 to the company. No doubt all sorts of other sums come into the equation that make it worth while for the airlines to operate in what, on the face of it, is amazingly uneconomic mode.
	One of the advantages of being a person of increasing years is that one has seen things before. There used to be an entrepreneur known as Freddie Laker who brought cheap air travel to the millions. Mr. Laker is no longer flying aeroplanes, or rather his company is not. That passed away. Whether flights at giveaway prices can be maintained in the long term is for the market to decide. While the market makes up its mind, there may be devastating effects on the people who live near entrepreneurial experiments.
	The number of passengers at the moment is about 19 million, having increased from about 7 million only a few years ago. Now there is permission to increase to 25 million, and as the airport stands, without any more runways, it has a capacity for 35 million. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has announced a second runway, which will extend capacity to 47 million passengers per annum.
	People mainly travel to Stansted on the motorways. It is difficult to travel by train, although it is possible from London. The line from Braintree was taken out many years ago. Most travel by road. Whizzing—or, in due course, crawling—along the motorway, one may not appreciate the nature of the countryside surrounding Stansted. It does not have the splendour of Ben Nevis or Snowdonia or the picture postcard charm of the Lake District, but it has a particular character all of its own— England as it used to be in the eastern counties. There are low rolling hills, streams, copses, woods and quiet little villages. There are literally hundreds of historical and listed buildings. Great Bardfield, which is in the Braintree division, is an amazingly picturesque old village. It should be a town, as it used to have a quarter session. It attracted a colony of nationally renowned artists in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s, who settled there because of the scope it offered them to paint, draw and express themselves in art.
	The area does not suffer from high unemployment. Unemployment is effectively nil. Therefore, employees to service increased passenger numbers will have to travel into the area. As Members can imagine from my description, property prices are not on the lowest rung, so employees at the airport will find it difficult to afford houses, even if they are suffering from blight. That means that they will have to travel in, thus creating further environmental difficulties, which have not been fully analysed for the White Paper.
	The White Paper admits that certain things will have to change. It talks of the need for a thorough environmental assessment before the change is undertaken. I hoped that a thorough environmental assessment might take place before we had the announcement in the White Paper. The White Paper states that capacity needs to be considered on the west anglia mainline, the M11 and M25, and on local roads. None of that has yet been assessed, but the announcement has been made, with all the consequences that will follow.
	If the second runway is built, we face the possible loss of 1,000 properties, two scheduled ancient monuments and 29 listed buildings—to say nothing of the devastation of the countryside and the inconvenience and distress caused to local people within a huge radius, way outside the acquired land. A general blight will fall on this historic part of Essex for many years to come. The White Paper talks flippantly about the new runway being expected to be in operation by 2011–12. That might have been possible at one time, but in these days of endless consideration and looking into things, I cannot see anything happening as early as that. The longer the consideration, the longer the blight, and the longer the distress to people who may have spent all their lives in that area and now fear what is to come.
	The Government accept that it is for the airport operator to prepare a scheme to address the problem of generalised blight. Airport operators are not social institutions or foundations with charitable status, and, with all due respect to them, I cannot imagine that that will be high on their agenda for next year. The problem will therefore persist.
	The White Paper seems to have made the situation even worse with regard to the second runway because of where it has been placed. One would not favour this, but the second runway could have been placed within the present boundaries of what is already an enormous airport. It could have been placed relatively close to the present runway, but that has not been done. The White Paper places the new runway almost as far away as possible from the present runway and from the boundaries of the airport. It concedes that extensive acquisition of land will be required in order to achieve that.
	That raises two points. First, how many other runways can be slotted in between the first and what people fear will be the fourth: will there be four rather than two? The other matter is the sheer increase in expense of the whole operation and the greater uncertainty and damage to countryside and buildings and the great undermining of people's domestic security.
	I have no idea what the cost will be. I do not think that the Government have said what it will be, and when I questioned to the Secretary of State on Tuesday, he replied:
	"As with any airport development, the private operator must finance airport construction, and, in the case of Stansted, BAA must make such a commercial judgment. I understand that it will say something further in the next few days, but it must decide whether it thinks the figures stack up commercially, and the Government will not step in and do that for it."—[Official Report, 16 December 2003; Vol. 415, c. 1445.]
	To use a phrase from the 19th century, the whole thing is very much a leap in the dark. We do not know what it will cost and are waiting for the private operator to say what it will cost. Meanwhile, the concern and anxiety continue.
	I appreciate that it is sometimes tiresome for Members who may know little about these places to hear people speak about them at length, so I shall draw my remarks to a close. There is great concern and fear among people who live in that part of Essex and in Hertfordshire. The sooner the whole thing is resolved, the better, and preferably that will be done in the negative sense that the proposal does not go ahead because it does not stack up and exists only because of cross-subsidy from Heathrow and Gatwick, which will soon become illegal and will have to be lifted if the proposal is even to be considered.

Andrew Rosindell: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for giving me an opportunity to contribute to the Christmas Adjournment debate, which gives a great chance to all Members to raise a multitude of local, national and international issues that are important to them and their constituents. I intend to take the opportunity to raise a number of concerns with which many of my constituents agree.
	First, this is a Christmas Adjournment debate. Many people in my constituency, like many hon. Members, are concerned by ongoing efforts by some individuals and, I am sad to say, by Government Ministers to downgrade the importance of Christmas. A lot of people have expressed disgust at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which published a Christmas card that bears no relation to the celebration of the Christian festival of Christmas. Not so in Romford, where our schools, churches and community organisations have organised and hosted a range of magnificent Christian celebrations and activities over the past few weeks, welcoming people of all religions and including everybody in what is a Christian but also a national celebration for all British people.
	I pay tribute to the schools that I have had the privilege of visiting over the past few days, which have organised concerts, nativity plays and similar activities. In particular, St. Mary's Hare Park Catholic primary school and St. Peter's Catholic primary school organised wonderful nativity plays and concerts only last week. My own ex-junior school, Rise Park, held a nativity concert involving many pupils, and I was privileged and proud to be present. Parklands infant school and St. Edward's Church of England primary also held events. Members will be pleased to hear that I have also been active on my recent Saturdays in visiting every school and church Christmas fair in the constituency. I have visited 21 Christmas fairs in the past month, including those at Crowlands school, Squirrels Heath school, Nelmes school, St. Alban's church, St. Andrew's church and, last but by no means least, Havering Road Methodist church. Christmas is a wonderful Christian festival, and I hope that hon. Members—indeed, Ministers—will remember that in future.
	This has been a great year in many ways in Romford, but it has been the greatest in my memory because Her Majesty the Queen visited my constituency for the first time. She visited Romford market and my local church, St. Edward's, in the marketplace. The people of Romford are very proud of their heritage of being British. We uphold the traditions of our country with great pride, and we were very proud to welcome Her Majesty on 6 March.
	Early-day motion 239 is about the national anthem. I hope that we will not be afraid of playing the national anthem more often, and I mean not just playing the national anthem of the United Kingdom, but, proudly, playing the anthems of the countries that make up the nation—England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We must be proud of the traditions of all parts of the United Kingdom, and that means being proud to fly the flag of our country, too, not hiding it away as if it is a shameful emblem. It is a flag of unity, and I hope that the British Parliament will follow the example of Her Majesty the Queen and fly the flag from Victoria Tower, just as the Queen does every day at Buckingham Palace, unless she is in residence, when the Royal Standard flies.
	I hope that the Government will be proud of our traditions and fight to defend the rights and freedoms of this country and reject any reheated Brussels constitution that may come to us at a later date. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) will be at the forefront of opposition to any attempt to impose such a constitution on the British people, and he will have the support of my constituents and everyone on the Opposition side of the House in that.
	I want to turn quickly to some local issues. Romford is in the London borough of Havering, and hon. Members will have heard me say before that the borough is terribly underfunded by the existing system of Government grant. We are not given a fair deal by central Government, whether Labour or Conservative. My constituents need a fair deal. How can it be right that neighbouring boroughs get vast extra resources although they have very similar populations? How can it be right that outer London boroughs such as Havering continue to subsidise inner London in a range of areas? My hon. Friends the Members for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) and for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson), as outer London Members, will agree that outer London is fed up with subsidising inner London. We are tired of paying for the Greater London assembly, which has been a complete waste of money.
	I hope that the Government will consider giving those in outer London boroughs the opportunity to vote in a referendum to opt out of the GLA, allowing us the chance to rekindle our historical links with the counties on the edge of London. I draw the House's attention to early-day motion 220, regarding the historic counties of our country. I hope that they are restored as soon as possible.
	Policing in the London borough of Havering is under-resourced. Once again, we pay for police cover; we do not get it. The police are sent to inner London. I hope that the Government will find a fairer way to ensure that all boroughs are adequately covered by police resources.
	It is important that we defend community facilities and things that are for all our people to enjoy, such as local parks. I commend the Friends of Rise Park who have fought for a number of years to restore Rise park to the family-friendly place it used to be—equally so, the Friends of Cottons Park. Both parks are in my constituency and both groups are working very hard to try to get funding to ensure that those parks are restored, so that they become the places that we all remember as children. It is sad when parks turn into havens for vandals, thugs and people who take drugs, turning what should be places for families and communities to enjoy into unsavoury areas that people simply wish to avoid.
	I also ask the Government to consider allowing much more local control over matters such as planning. We are fed up with Governments of all parties overruling local authorities, so that we end up changing the nature of our town centres. My constituency, Romford, has the second largest number of nightclubs in London. Well, we do not want any more nightclubs. We want to ensure that local communities are for the people of those communities and that we do not turn our towns and cities into mini Sohos.
	On road safety, I am very sceptical about speed cameras. However, they have their use in certain places. One of those areas is Havering-atte-Bower—the historic village in the north of my constituency that overlooks greater London—where we need a speed camera, but rules dictate that the local council cannot install one. Once again, such things are decided on a London-wide basis, and I hope that local control can be given over them.
	I pay tribute to a new local community organisation that has been established by Mrs. Cecilia Shoetan, whose daughter sadly died from a condition known as sickle cell disease, which will be familiar to many hon. Members. Mrs. Shoetan lives in my constituency. Not too many people in my borough suffer from that condition, but Mrs. Shoetan's daughter Lorraine died in tragic circumstances, and she is quite rightly fighting to ensure that we receive resources so that local people in my borough who suffer from that condition can obtain help. I pay tribute to her for fighting and working so hard to establish the sickle cell support group in the London borough of Havering.
	Two days ago, I had the privilege to visit Clarence house, where His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales hosted a seminar for Members of Parliament to highlight the excellent work that he is doing with the Prince's Trust, the Prince of Wales's Foundation for Architecture and the Built Environment and the Prince of Wales's Foundation for Integrated Health, among a number of other charities and causes in which he is involved.
	At that seminar, I was very pleased to meet a young person, Kevin Johnson, who spoke passionately about his life as a youngster growing up in Glasgow. He managed to get himself hooked on cannabis when he was eight. By the age of 12 or 13, he was on heroin. He told us how the Prince's Trust has helped him to get back into a way of living that we would all hope all our young people would enjoy. In front of the Prince of Wales, he asked all the Members of Parliament who were present at Clarence house, "How can you MPs even consider liberalising drugs of any sort? I know the devastation that they cause to people of my age and others. Please do not weaken the drug laws." I hope that Ministers will remember that plea in future.
	I wish briefly to speak up for people who are not represented in Parliament—the people of the British overseas territories and the Crown dependencies. They have no Members of Parliament, despite the fact that we make laws that affect them. They have no representation on any Select Committee or in the House of Lords. Let us remember those people, particularly the people of Gibraltar, who next year will celebrate 300 years of being British. I hope that all hon. Members will celebrate that great occasion in the history not only of Gibraltar, but of the United Kingdom.
	Let us remember the people of Montserrat, which has been devastated by a volcano and needs more help; the people of St. Helena who desperately need an airport; the people of the Falkland Islands who are still concerned about the renewed efforts by the Argentine Government to gain sovereignty; the people of the Cayman Islands who are fed up with the European Union interfering in their affairs when they are not part of the EU; and, similarly, those of the Isle of Man and the channel islands, in which the EU is also interfering. Let us also remember the British Indian Ocean Territory and its people who were shamefully ejected by the British Government in the 1960s. They have a right to return eventually to their homeland.
	In wishing you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the staff of the Speaker's Office and the Officers of the House a very happy Christmas, I wish to make a final appeal as we approach Christmas: please read early-day motion 202, which I have submitted, regarding the importance of remembering that a dog is for life, not just for Christmas. I hope that all hon. Members will remind their constituents that if they purchase a dog for Christmas, it is a lifetime commitment, not a short-term one that leads up to Christmas and then gets forgotten about.
	I hope that, in 2004, all of us can help to restore the bulldog spirit of this country that has been so lacking since 1 May 1997. I wish all hon. Members a happy Christmas and renewed confidence that, once again, our country will be proud, strong and remain free in 2004.

Louise Ellman: Earlier this afternoon, the Leader of the House condemned what he termed the rising tide of anti-Semitism. I believe that the House should not adjourn until it has debated the important issue of the role Islamicist organisations play in inciting racial hatred in the United Kingdom through propagating anti-Semitism under the guise of anti-Zionism. I wish to make it very clear that criticising the policies of the Government of Israel is not anti-Semitic. However, demonising Israel and Zionists—those who support Jewish national self-determination—by invoking images of disproportionate conspiratorial power is indeed anti-Semitism.
	It is time that the spotlight fell on the Muslim Association of Britain, particularly the key figures, such as Azzam Tamimi, Kamal el Helbawy, Anas Al-Tikriti and Mohammed Sawalha. All of them are connected to the terrorist organisation Hamas. The Muslim Association of Britain itself is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood—an extremist fundamentalist organisation founded in Egypt in 1928, and the spiritual ideologue of all Islamic terror organisations. It is militantly anti-Semitic and always has been.
	In June 2003, the Muslim Association of Britain organised a series of meetings with an American imam, Anwar Al Awlaki, as guest speaker. That gentleman is reportedly wanted for questioning by the FBI in connection with the 9/11 al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Azzam Tamimi often appears in the media, representing the Muslim Association of Britain. He is an adviser to Hamas in the middle east. In 1991, when he lived in Jordan, he was the official spokesperson of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic Action Front. He worked for the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood between 1989 and 1992. When he came to London, he continued his activities. He openly supports Palestinian suicide bombers. In July 2002, Azzam Tamimi spoke at a conference on Palestine in South Africa at which he said:
	"Do not call them suicide bombers, call them Shuhada"—
	martyrs. He continued:
	"They"—
	the Israelis—
	"have guns, We have the human bombs. We love death, they love life."
	He argues consistently that jihad is the only way forward for the Palestinians. He has said:
	"For us Muslims, Martyrdom is not the end of the things but the beginning of the most wonderful of things.
	He told a conference in Vienna that after Israel is destroyed and replaced with an Islamic state, the Jews should
	"sail on the sea in ships back to where they came or drown in it."
	I heard him speak at a Palestine Solidarity rally in November 2002 in this very building, and I heard him say:
	"Listen Israel and Jews around the world, unless you change there is no future for you."
	This is not a man of peace. He and his arguments incite hatred against Jews. He speaks regularly on behalf of the Muslim Association of Britain. Will the Muslim Association of Britain dissociate itself from him? Messages put out by that association and other Islamist groups, together with the far right—the traditional anti-Semites—continue to incite growing violence against Jews in the United Kingdom. The Community Security Trust, part of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, has been documenting those attacks. It reports that
	"in the 1st quarter of 2003, there were 89 anti-Semitic incidents in Britain, a 75 per cent. rise on the 1st quarter last year when 51 incidents occurred. This follows a 13 per cent. increase in anti-Semitic incidents in 2002 on the previous year. There were 21 anti-Semitic incidents in January and 25 in February 2003. Eleven of the incidents in the first quarter took place on university campuses."
	The situation in the rest of Europe is even more serious. In Paris, a school has been burned down. The Chief Rabbi of France has warned men not to wear head coverings in public for their own protection. We are all too aware of the bombs in Istanbul that claimed so many lives. The situation is so serious that the European Union commissioned a report on anti-Semitism. Sadly, it tried to suppress the findings of that report because it showed the link between anti-Semitic attacks and some elements of the Muslim community. It is tragic that the holocaust cannot be taught in some French schools because pupils dispute whether it happened. The situation is growing, and it is too serious to ignore.
	We should not underestimate the impact of anti-Semitic messages beamed into this country from the Arab world. During Ramadan this year, Hezbollah satellite television, Al-Manar, broadcast thirty episodes of a Syrian production called "Al- Shatat". According to the Syria Times on 11 March this year it was a
	"Syrian TV series recording the criminal history of Zionism."
	Episode 20 shows a Christian child kidnapped by Jews, his throat cut, his blood collected in a metal bowl, and the blood then used to make Passover matzo. That is classic anti-Semitic blood libel of medieval Christian origin, but propagated more recently by the Nazis. I have viewed the footage, which is gruesome, revolting and an incitement to racial hatred. I call on the Government to make strong representations to Syria about that series.
	I, like many, seek a peaceful solution to the tragic Israel-Palestinian conflict, based on a secure Israel with integrity as a Jewish state, and a viable Palestinian state beside Israel as a homeland for the Palestinians. A solution based on the division of land is realistic. I support the Geneva accords, which show a way forward, and I was pleased to participate recently in the Rabin peace seminar, which brought together members of the Israeli Knesset with leading members of the Palestinian Authority, at which I saw that there was a way to peace. Preaching hatred against Jews, however, is a handicap.
	Preaching hatred of the sort that we are now hearing and seeing will undermine reconciliation and threatens community relations in the United Kingdom. It is already igniting anti-Semitism with potentially dire consequences for community relations in this country and in Europe as a whole. This must not be ignored. The Government are making valiant efforts to bring about peace in the middle east and to support good community relations in this country. I ask them not to ignore mounting anti-Semitism and to take action against it, from wherever, it comes, before it is too late.

Nigel Evans: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this Christmas Adjournment debate.
	Earlier, the Leader of the House said that we should all suggest names of people to be honoured in the forthcoming honours list. I thought that I would start the ball rolling and suggest my mother. She is an absolute heroine and a tremendous lady. There is one problem that worries me, however, and it may be the stumbling block to her recognition: she does not support the Government. She is not a Labour voter, she always votes Tory, and, for whatever reason, she does not like the Prime Minister. Given what I have read in the Sunday papers about the vetting of people who are suggested for honours, I wonder whether they have to be supporters of the Government. That would disturb me greatly. I hope that the Minister will reassure me that that hurdle will not be put in front of my mother and others who happen not to support the Government. As to the suggestion of sexing up the list with those whose names people can recognise, as opposed to those who deserve honours, I hope that that is not true. I hope that people included in the list will be there on their merits and for no other reason.
	I want to endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Mr. Rosindell) said about Gibraltar. It is its 300th anniversary next year, and I hope that we will all celebrate it. I am proud of our attachment to Gibraltar and the support that it has given us over the centuries. I hope that the celebrations will take place throughout the country, and that the Government will get behind them. I know that there is some feeling that we might offend the Spanish if we are seen to be over-rejoicing in the fact that we have a close association with Gibraltar, but they should not be so sensitive. It has been a British territory for 300 years—the first 300 years, I hasten to add—and we should rejoice in it. In a referendum held this year, the people of Gibraltar showed overwhelmingly that they wish the current association to remain. We should respect their wishes, and I hope that the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister will do so. Let us celebrate that 300th anniversary, and I hope that the Government will soon announce a number of things to help us celebrate it in this country—perhaps even an announcement that the Prime Minister will visit Gibraltar next year will give some support.
	The Government need to look urgently at council tax because, in April, as we know, bills will be dropping through people's letter boxes. We have seen in the Daily Express a campaign that relates particularly to pensioners on fixed incomes who live in big houses, perhaps for historical reasons such as having raised a family there, and who wish to remain in them. We all understand that, but the increases in council tax that they have had to face over the past seven years have been horrific—about 70 per cent., including the increase this year, on typical band D homes, and most band D homes are now subject to bills of well over £1,000. I therefore hope that the Government will be more honest about the funding of local government. We know that there has been a lot of rigging in terms of the way in which money has been moved around the country.
	The Chancellor of the Exchequer announced £400 million to dampen the effects of this year's increase, but in many areas it will still be more than 10 per cent., while the inflation rate is about 2.5 per cent. Nobody apart from MEPs got a 10 per cent. pay increase this year. That £400 million will therefore not keep council tax low, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer should have told local authorities what increase would be unacceptable before capping is introduced. We need to know that figure, but an increase that is four times the rate of inflation is unacceptable.
	In business questions, the closure of post offices was mentioned twice, by Members on both sides of the House. I, too, know of a few post office closures in my constituency this year. We do not want to receive letters about branch closures in our offices, but, sadly, we do. I congratulate all postmen and women and postmasters and mistresses on their hard work and dedication throughout the year, but particularly at Christmas time. We must value the post office network. I am the first to concede that there were hundreds of closures under the previous Government as well, but this year about 205 branches have closed, and, from what we have heard today, the number seems to be escalating,. The network consists of about 17,200 post offices. Every Member of Parliament values the post offices in their constituency and our constituents are aware of their importance. The post office is the only shop in many villages and, apart from offering post office services, they sell goods. There are a number of such post offices in my constituency but, as I said, they are under threat. If people lose their post office, it is unlikely that they will ever get it back.
	There have been a few closures in my constituency including, last year, Grindleton post office, which was the only shop in the village. Sometimes when we receive letters about a closure, the Post Office asks whether we can suggest anyone who is prepared to come in and run the local post office. We must acknowledge that post offices sometimes are not economically viable. Even with all the goods that they sell in addition to stamps, postal orders and so on, and even if the postmaster runs a convenience store too, post offices, particularly given the salary that is paid, may not be economically viable. The profit margin on a number of goods sold in post offices is extremely low. For example, it is about 4 per cent. on phone cards, which are high-cost items.
	If the Government value our post office network, they must do something to save it. Clearly, this year's initiative to get people to have their benefits paid directly into bank accounts has not helped. The Government say that people have a choice in relation to the way in which they receive their benefits, but some elderly people have received phone calls when they have said that they wish to carry on receiving their benefits in the post office trying to persuade them to have that money paid directly into a bank account. A lot of people are being badgered into changing their mind and agreeing to direct payment into a bank account. That does not help the post office network in any way whatsoever, so I would be grateful if the Minister would give us an assurance that people will have genuine choice with regard to the way in which their benefits and pensions are paid, and will not be badgered or forced into opening a bank account.
	As for support for the network, the Government must be more imaginative about the ways in which they protect those post offices. There may be a rural subsidy or some other form of recognition to keep post offices open. Without such payments, the system may not be viable. People who work in post offices work long hours under enormous stress. They have to be accurate in all their work because, in the main, they are dealing with money. One postmistress who worked part time told me that it was not worth it—people who worked in McDonald's were getting a higher hourly rate than she was for a job that entailed a great deal of stress and responsibility. In the end she chucked it in, and that facility has been lost in one of my villages, which is very sad indeed.
	We must acknowledge that working in a post office entails long hours. It is not at all an easy job, so we must provide support. Post offices are the lifeblood of the community. People know the postmaster and mistress and the individuals who work in the shop. I know of one post office where, if someone did not come in one week to get their benefit, the staff would go round to their house to see that they were all right. With the best will in the world, that does not happen at Asda and Tesco. We must recognise the importance of the job that those people are doing.
	About 400,000 people get relatives or friends to pick up their benefits for them. They would not be able to get them to nip into Barclays or some other bank to do so. We must stop the rot—we must work out how we can keep our post offices viable and keep the network going as far as possible. I pay tribute to all the postmen and postwomen, and to my own postman, Trevor. I thank him for all the work that he has done delivering letters to the entire village and me—we are extremely grateful.
	In conclusion, I wish the House a merry Christmas and a happy new year. We look forward to 2004, when the people of the north will vote no to regional government.

Kevan Jones: I should like to raise our constituents' ability to gain justice when a wrong is committed against them or a member of their family. I shall give two different examples of circumstances faced by my constituents in North Durham over the past year. Each constituent was let down by the system, and left angry and disillusioned with the legal system.
	The first case concerns Mrs. Ann Stevens of Annfield Plain in my constituency. In October 2002, Mrs. Stevens was involved in a road traffic accident. The other driver collided with Mrs Stevens's car but fled the scene of the accident. Her car was a write-off and she was hospitalised. The police arrested the other driver, a young man, who was brought before the local magistrates court and found guilty. Mrs. Stevens was awarded £150 in compensation but, even so, she was severely out of pocket. Her car, worth over £500, was written off, and she could not claim against her own insurance. The other driver had no insurance at all. In addition, Mrs. Stevens had to pay £105 for her vehicle to be recovered. Not only was she several hundred pounds poorer but she had to go to hospital and was left traumatised by the experience of the accident.
	On 20 December 2002, Mrs. Stevens was notified by North Durham magistrates court that she would receive the compensation awarded to her on a monthly basis. She waited and waited, and the first payment arrived at the beginning of March this year. It was worth a grand total of £2.25. The cheque was accompanied by a letter explaining that compensation would be awarded on a monthly basis, and that her compensation was consolidated with amounts being paid to three other people by the person who caused the accident. The letter explained that deductions would be made from that individual's state benefit, and that the amount would be divided among all those being compensated. Mrs. Stevens was to receive a cheque worth £2.25 each month.
	My constituent received payments for a few months, but nothing has arrived since 13 June. She has received no explanation as to why the payments have ceased. Mrs. Stevens is the victim in this case, but she is the one who is suffering, along with the taxpayer.
	I also question the administrative costs in the case. Those costs include making deductions from the other driver's benefit, writing cheques to the recipients of compensation, and posting them off. The only winner is the person found guilty of the original crime.
	In July, I wrote to the Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Leslie), about the case. He replied:
	"The enforcement of financial penalties is a priority. On 25 June, I announced a new and radical approach to the collection of financial penalties. Too many financial penalties are not paid and the authority of courts must be enforced. This 7 point plan will be driven by ministers in the department and we will intervene personally with any Magistrates court committees that continue to perform badly."
	Those are fine and tough words, but they are little help to Mrs. Stevens, or to other victims still waiting for compensation. It also misses the main problem: what is the point of imposing fines and compensation orders if they cannot be enforced? The Minister, like my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, seems to want to be tough by imposing fines, but it is clear that in some cases alternatives—such as community orders and other sentences—need to be found. They may appear softer, but they are much more effective when it comes to securing justice.
	Since I raised the case with the Minister, I have spoken to the Durham magistrates committee. It appears that the problem is not that the magistrates are unwilling to pursue defaulters, but that it is hard to collect the money because of evasion and the difficulty in tracing offenders. Also, repeat offenders incur mounting debts that become unmanageable.
	Some 67 per cent. of offenders receive state benefits. The present system means that the Government are recycling their own money in a very inefficient way. Fines do not punish the guilty, and do not help victims. In poor areas, there are many people on benefit, and collection is very difficult. That means that the recovery rate for fines can be as low as 40 per cent., and the costs of recovery are disproportionately high. The system needs to be reviewed. To prevent the evasion that is clearly going on, fines and compensation orders should be made only when courts have full personal details about the people involved. We should stop wasting everyone's time by imposing fines on people receiving state benefits. Those fines cannot be collected, and the inefficient system does not help taxpayers. The task should be to ensure that fines and compensation are imposed only when they can be collected. Where alternatives are available, they should be pursued.
	The other issue that I want to raise is the fight for justice by constituents who worked, or whose families worked, in the coal mining industry. Many people contracted debilitating lung disease from their exposure to coal dust, and many died slow and agonising deaths.
	I congratulate the Government on putting in place the handling agreement that means that people are now being compensated. In North Durham, more than £10 million has been paid out to victims and their families—something that has been achieved because a Labour Government are in power.
	However, I want to speak in particular about the unjust and unfair fees levied by solicitors and claim handlers on claimants and their families. Some of them act like vultures as they take a cut out of claimants' compensation, on top of the fees already paid to them by the Department of Trade and Industry. They exhibit nothing short of greed when they take money off the people and families for whom it was meant. Those people include many who are dying, as well as poor and aged widows.
	In North Durham, I have been made aware of the activities of one particular firm of solicitors—Mark Gilbert Morse of Grey street in Newcastle upon Tyne. My constituents Mrs. Greener and Mrs. Elliott of Stanley agreed that the firm should handle their late father's case after a leaflet was pushed through their doors. Both recently received interim settlements of their claims, and in both cases just over 21 per cent. of their claim was deducted by the solicitors in fees. Last week, an 83-year-old widow came to see me who had had £8,000 deducted in the same way. In the cases of Mrs. Elliott and Mrs. Greener, the irony is that the fees were deducted before their case has been completed. The letter that was sent to them clearly stated that under the conditional fee agreement into which they entered, up to 25 per cent. of the damages could be deducted.
	That is nothing short of unjustified greed. Mark Gilbert Morse will have been paid its fees by the DTI, but not content with that it is eager greedily to plunder the compensation of my needy constituents. I have written to the Law Society about the firm and raised it with the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Griffiths). I congratulate him on the strong line that he and the Government are taking against such companies in insisting that 100 per cent. of the compensation should go to the claimants. I issue a challenge to Mark Gilbert Morse to pay back to claimants the money that they have deducted. My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) has, on behalf of his constituents, made similar charges against a firm in Doncaster called Beresfords, which has agreed to pay back the money. I understand that Mark Gilbert Morse is dealing with thousands of claims in the north-east. If it refuses to pay the money back, the Government should seriously consider withholding any further payment of fees until there has been a full investigation of its activities.
	Another problem in the north-east is that vulnerable people are being exploited by claims handlers, who are not solicitors and have no legal qualifications, but act as middlemen in sorting out claims. Last week, I heard about an horrendous case from a solicitor who was approached by a claims handler with several thousand cases on his books and asked if he wanted to buy them. I fear that next year, when the cut-off date for claims arrives, many people who think that they have submitted claims to firms of solicitors will find that they are languishing in the hands of claims handlers. I would urge my constituents, or anybody else, to avoid claims handlers like the plague. Action against those rogues is urgently required. Decent, hard-working people are being ripped off and having money that they justly deserve taken away from them.
	In closing, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I take this opportunity to wish you and your family, and the rest of the House, all the best for Christmas and a prosperous 2004.

John Wilkinson: Mr. Deputy Speaker, I wish that you had been in the Chair to hear the speech by the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst), who eulogised the beauty of the countryside around Stansted, which you, Sir, know so well. He speculated as to why the proposed new runway that the Government have approved in principle should be so far from the existing one: that is a good point.
	We benefited enormously, too, from the courageous speech by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman). How right she was to warn us, at this time of peace, of the danger to community relations that is posed by Islamic fundamentalist fanatics who preach a hostile gospel against Jewry the world over.
	Last, but by no means least, I must mention my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Mr. Rosindell), whose speech was a masterpiece of its kind. Most of us feel accountable to our constituents and are content to leave it at that, but he rightly feels that in all his doings in his constituency he is answerable to this House. He enjoined us, at least implicitly, to do something that, candidly, I have been unable to do as yet—that is, to attend a school in the constituency for every day of Advent. I believe that this is admirable. He rightly made it clear to those who might have thought from his election literature that a bulldog was just for election time that a bulldog is not for an election or for Christmas but for life.
	I wish that the Secretary of State for Transport—and for Scotland, for he is both—had presented his White Paper on civil air transport much earlier in the year. If he had done so, many of our constituents would not have appalling blight hanging over them this Christmastide. Parliament could have held a proper two-day debate on his strategic framework for air transport and reached considered conclusions. The planners could have progressed with all that was necessary to put in place airport and related facilities for developing civil air transport in our country for the next generation. Instead, there is grave uncertainty.
	If I am fair to the Secretary of State—I try to be—I must say that there is some merit in his White Paper; it is half sensible. I suppose that one would expect a half sensible document from a half-time Secretary of State. I have no cavil with its basic premise that civil air transport is crucial to this country. I applaud the way in which he has fought off those, probably mostly in his party, but perhaps some Liberal Democrat Members, who are instinctively hostile to air transport and mainly want to tax it.
	I also applaud the Secretary of State's measured, incremental approach to developing the industry in an uncertain world in the next 20 and 30 years. I am sure that this is wise. We do not know how terrorism will affect the industry or the impact of ultra-large aircraft such as the A380. We do not know the extent to which high-speed rail will compete in our continent and domestically, although Eurostar's share of passengers who previously travelled by air to Paris and Brussels is surely significant. I have outlined reasons for the Government to be cautious and I welcome the Secretary of State's incremental approach.
	I also welcome the right hon. Gentleman's appreciation of the importance of air transport for regional development and his emphasis in the document on the importance of developing regional airports. I leave Scotland to him, but I shall comment on England because England and our English economy, not least in the south-east and London, make fundable those matters that the Scottish Executive cover. I have no quarrel with his aims for developing regional airports. An additional runway at Birmingham; the extension of Liverpool's runway and those at Newcastle, Teesside and Leeds-Bradford; and the extensions at Bristol and at Luton are wise and sensible measures.
	The fullest use of minor airports in the south-east of England is important. They include Southend, which is an admirable airport. I used to instruct there—and at Stansted too in the good old days before the little hangar from which we used to operate was submerged under a terminal.
	However, sentiment is not a basis on which to evolve a strategy; the Secretary of State must be decisive. He has failed in that because he has put off important decisions. The only significant decision that he has made is that there will be another runway at Stansted. When we get the debate on the White Paper, that is bound to go through because of the majority that the Government enjoy. That is an arithmetical fact.
	However, great uncertainty remains about the two principal airports in the London system, namely Gatwick and Heathrow. In my judgment, the Government are fundamentally wrong about Heathrow. The main reason why they are unwilling completely to commit themselves to another east-west runway there, between the A4 and the M4, is that they are frightened of the European Union—the only body that makes the Government take fright and take notice. They are wary of infringing the directive on air pollution, particularly in relation to nitrogen dioxide emissions. On those grounds, they seek to say that all the environmental conditions have to be met, particularly on air pollution, but the main environmental condition is that it is a wholly inappropriate place to build another runway.
	Why are the emissions so high there? Because it is a built-up, congested area that already has an enormous amount of air traffic and motor traffic—the M4 is part of the nearby motorway network. A lot of aircraft taxi around, and with a fifth terminal and the possibility of mixed-mode operation for at least part of the day, the level of emissions is likely to increase, even if the Government seek to impose higher landing charges on the more polluting aircraft.
	The Government have therefore ducked the basic environmental issue, which is that this is the wrong place to put another runway. The airport's potential should be fully realised within the existing geographical confines of Heathrow. British Airways is to concentrate its services at the fifth terminal, rather than dividing them between the first and fourth terminals, which is all to the good. We also know that its domestic and European services will continue to decline because of the competitive impact of low-cost carriers such as Ryanair and easyJet. That being the case, I am not certain that the build-up of traffic at Heathrow is going to be quite so large as the Government anticipate.
	Furthermore, the Government have assigned to the European Union what should be a basic national right: the right of any sovereign state to decide air service agreements and negotiate them with other Governments. I fear that the consequence of that will be that Brussels will decide that Heathrow is too preponderant on the north Atlantic routes, and that it will seek increasingly to grant air service agreements to carriers on those routes and other long-haul routes, stipulating Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Brussels as a gateway to the European Union, rather than Heathrow.
	The proposed site for the new runway is on green-belt land on the edge of Harmondsworth village, where my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) and I recently had the privilege of attending a carol service in the great barn alongside the mediaeval church, by virtue of an invitation from the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). That village would be appallingly blighted by the new runway, as would Sipson. That part of the green belt is a crucial lung between highly developed Heathrow and the communities of Hayes, West Drayton and Uxbridge. I speak as the president of the Green Belt Council. It is an unpaid appointment, but I should declare my interest.
	I urge the Government to think again about this proposal. There are also purely technical aspects that militate against it. There would be an inordinately long taxi from the central area to the new runway, for example. Aircraft would have to cross the more northerly of the two existing east-west runways to get there. Furthermore, movements on that northern runway will be impinged upon by departures out of RAF Northolt. The White Paper agrees that this is the case. In answer to a question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge, the House was told that flying operations out of RAF Northolt—a core station of strategic value to the country, as the White Paper admits—would impinge on the departure pattern of the most northerly of what will be three runways at Heathrow, if the new one is built. That, too, has not been thought out. Of course, there is a need for a sixth terminal alongside the new runway with parking facilities. High-speed transport links would have to be put in—who would pay for those? That question has not been answered. When the inspector recommended that the fifth terminal at Heathrow should go ahead, he said that in his judgment it should be conditional on there being no further runway development at Heathrow.
	The Government have said in the White Paper that if the runway at Heathrow does not go ahead, another should be built at Gatwick. In my judgment, if aviation professionals at the Department deem it sensible that there should be another runway at Stansted, another one at Gatwick is even more overdue because there are already two terminals there. Of course, there is a covenant or arrangement whereby this should not come into operation before 2019, but it is admitted that if another runway were built at Gatwick, the environmental impact would be less than at Heathrow. There would be less noise disturbance and fewer problems from pollution emissions, and those considerations ought to be taken into account.
	To conclude, the White Paper is good in parts, but as far as the overall equation in the London area is concerned, the basic decisions have been ducked. There is more potential at Luton—particularly with its new transport links and extended runway—than is recognised. Luton has a great future. There is much more potential at City airport, and if we make more use of places such as Southampton, Manston and Southend in the south-east, we can take the pressure off the London system. That should be the way forward. We should certainly not build a third east-west runway at Heathrow.

Geraldine Smith: In my contribution to this year's Christmas Adjournment debate, I will take the opportunity to comment briefly on the Government's proposals for funding higher education, and in particular their intention to allow English universities to levy variable tuition charges on graduates from those institutions.
	I would like to make it clear at the outset that I share and support the Government's objectives of raising standards and widening access to higher education. I also welcome the significant funding increase that the Government are committed to over the next three years. The proposals to scrap up-front tuition fees and require graduates to make a contribution towards the cost of their courses are also a step in the right direction. However, I do not believe that that contribution should depend on which university a graduate has attended, or on the subjects they have studied. Such a crude attempt to introduce market forces to our universities is totally unacceptable, and I will oppose any Bill that contains such a measure.
	The fact that our universities are desperately in need of additional funding is undeniable. After decades of underfunding, much of their infrastructure is overcrowded, outdated and crumbling. We must provide students with safe laboratories, modern classrooms and well-stocked libraries, as well as up-to-date IT facilities. It is equally important that we address the problem of university staff pay. Pay increases for both academic and support staff in universities have significantly lagged behind those in the rest of the economy during the past 20 years. There is ample evidence to suggest that staff are leaving the higher education sector in ever increasing numbers. Many have taken up better-paid posts abroad. There is an urgent need for a modernised pay structure for university staff that provides rewards in terms of pay levels and opportunities for advancement that will enable universities to recruit and retain the best possible staff.
	It is clear that even the huge investment that the Government are making in higher education will not be sufficient to plug the hole in our universities' finances caused by the many years of underfunding. It is also obvious that if the damage caused by underfunding is to be repaired and universities are to be expanded and improved, additional resources must be found.
	It is wholly appropriate that students who benefit most from higher education and become graduates make an increased contribution towards bridging that funding gap. However, I fundamentally disagree with the measures that the Government intend to adopt to raise the additional charge. First and foremost, the proposed system of variable tuition fees is flawed and unfair. It is heavily biased in favour of high-profile universities, and the £3,000 ceiling is far too high.
	There is no doubt in my mind that universities such as Oxford and Cambridge will be able to charge the maximum fees with impunity, and thus gain the greatest financial benefit. It is to those very institutions that many of the brightest and best students aspire to gain admission. To my mind, there is something perverse about a system that rewards those who have achieved a standard of excellence in their studies by imposing the highest charge on their higher education.
	Although graduates from the poorest families may not be adversely affected financially by the maximum charge, all those further up the income scale will be. Those from families with incomes in excess of £31,231 per annum—who can hardly be described as rich—will have their fees almost trebled. It is true that the Government will relieve them of the need to pay up-front tuition fees, but I am sure that even the slowest student will be able to work out that swapping an up-front charge of £3,375 for an inflation-linked £9,000 debt is not that much of a bargain. I firmly believe that increases of that magnitude in tuition fees are unfair and cannot be justified. Indeed, it is only the Government's insistence on introducing variable tuition fees that makes the contemplation of such huge increases necessary.
	As for the proposed system of bursaries and remission of fees for those graduates who meet the financial criteria, I am opposed to both those measures in their current form. Students who have the appropriate qualifications to gain a place at a university and who would currently qualify for full fee remission should not have to shop around for a bursary. We must not introduce a bursary system that could act as a cap on the number of students from poor backgrounds taking up places at the universities of their choice. I believe that it is the responsibility of the state, not the universities, to ensure that such students are adequately supported.
	I can see no case for continuing the system of remission of fees, which should be abolished and replaced by maintenance grants. The Government are proposing that tuition fees be recovered from graduates once they are earning a minimum of £15,000 per year, at a rate affordable to each individual. It surely follows that the recovery process should apply equally to all graduates regardless of background. The Government have argued that a flat-rate increase in tuition fees would be wrong and unfair to some students who would have to pay more than they would pay under a variable fees increase. I have no recollection of any such concern being expressed by Ministers when up-front tuition fees were introduced a few years ago. Nor do they have much to say about the extortionate fees that many graduates will have to pay for the more popular courses at all universities under a variable fees system.
	In one respect, however, the Government have a case in arguing for flexibility in university funding. I refer to the need to attract suitably qualified people to study unpopular yet vital subjects such as physics. I believe that the difficulty could be overcome if universities were allowed to offer grants or other incentives.
	Let me summarise my view. I think that tuition fees should be levied on all graduates on a flat-rate basis, irrespective of which university they attend or which subject they study. I also think that any increase in fees should not take the total amount above £2,250 a year, double the current rate. I believe that the proposed bursaries for students and remission of fees should be scrapped and replaced by maintenance grants of equivalent value, payable at the start of each year.
	I think that my suggestions offer graduates a fairer deal: universities would have the additional funds that they so desperately need, and would have the flexibility to respond to their individual difficulties. I sincerely hope that the Deputy Leader of the House will convey my views to his colleagues.
	It only remains for me to wish a happy Christmas and a peaceful new year to you and your family, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to all Members and staff of the House.

John Randall: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith), who is known for speaking her mind in a principled way. She is right: the Government should have another look at their misguided plans on university fees.
	I do not know whether, during his visits to his local school, my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Mr. Rosindell) has heard the story of the Member of Parliament who, looking at pictures of a seasonal nature, noticed one of an aeroplane. When he asked what it had to do with Christmas, he was told that it depicted the flight to Egypt. He asked, "And who is that?", and was told, "It's Pontius the pilot." I make no apology for returning to the subject of the aviation White Paper.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson) has already made a very good speech about why we think the Heathrow third runway option is wrong, and the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst) has spoken about Stansted. I share his views, and his disappointment. The decision was indeed disappointing for those of us who are in the shadow of Heathrow. We thought that the environmental problems were insurmountable, and we still think that. As my hon. Friend pointed out, the advent of a fifth and possibly a sixth terminal, with a runway, and the introduction of mixed mode—which is also a possibility—would lead to many more flights and many more associated traffic movements. Levels of nitrogen dioxide would be likely to rise rather than fall.
	People have been in a downbeat mood because of that, but yesterday, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), I attended a meeting at Heathrow school in Sipson. Given that I have already caught your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I have no ulterior motive in saying this. Those at the meeting began by saying that their thoughts and prayers were with those living in the Stansted and Gatwick areas as well. We know what they are going through, and what it means when hundreds of people have their homes and communities threatened in this way.
	Morale at the meeting was initially rather low, but after a while we realised that, although this might be regarded as a stay of execution and that we were still on death row, the alternative—execution—was probably worse, generally speaking, and that we could now work for the reprieve that my constituents and I feel we deserve. Although it may yet take a few years of hard-fought battle, we will eventually walk free from the threat of losing homes, and of our health being affected by the toxic fumes of traffic and aviation in our area.
	By the end of the meeting, morale had risen so significantly that we finished with a rousing chorus of "Jerusalem". That is unusual for a meeting held in the constituency of my hon. Friend—on this occasion, he is my hon. Friend—the Member for Hayes and Harlington. I know that "Jerusalem" was written by a good socialist, but these days it is not normally regarded as something with which to finish a meeting of, say, the Campaign group.
	As the chairman of the meeting pointed out, if it had been a rugby match, the scores at full time would have been level, with the environmentalists and residents having exactly the same number of points on the board as the aviation industry. As he also pointed out, however, both the 1966 football World cup and the recent rugby World cup were won by England in extra time. Singing "Jerusalem" has spurred us on, and we know that we will achieve the same result.
	I should like to add my name to the list of those who are calling on the Government to establish a rugby foundation similar to the Football Foundation, which has done so much good work for that sport. Such a foundation would be able to upgrade stadiums, thereby providing decent facilities for rugby throughout the country. As recently as today, I received an e-mail from a young lady who runs a summer university in Tower Hamlets; in fact, it has proved so successful that it runs virtually throughout the year. She wants to organise some rugby, but it is proving very difficult to find pitches in that part of the world. That is exactly the sort of initiative that is needed. Given the huge tidal wave of interest and good will following our success in the World cup, we ought to be able to get a grip on this problem.
	In case I am accused of jumping on the bandwagon, I should point out that I have been a member of Uxbridge rugby club for many years, that I am a Saracens season ticket holder, and that my son plays for Ruislip rugby club. I wish those teams extremely well over the Christmas period. I should tell anybody who is going to watch Watford over Christmas that they have a couple of difficult matches coming up. I should also like to pay tribute to Richard Hill, the Saracens player who will be captaining England in their match against the New Zealand Barbarians at Twickenham on Saturday. Richard Hill is very much an unsung hero of England, and I wish him and the rest of the team well. I should further point out that Taine Randell, the captain of the Barbarians, also plays for Saracens. Although his spelling of his name is a little mistaken, he is a very fine player.
	Before I upset even more of my constituents than I normally do, I should also wish Uxbridge football club well in their match against Yeading. At that point, my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington will revert to being the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, as Yeading is in his constituency.
	On a more serious note, while many of us look forward to a pleasant, comfortable and warm Christmas, many people cannot do that, and I shall take the time I have left to talk about a forgotten area of Europe. In the wake of what has happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have often been told what a great success the campaign in Kosovo has been. However, I have a feeling that the truth about Kosovo is somewhat different, and that the plight of many people in that area has been rather forgotten, despite the fact that Kosovo is part of our own continent.
	Nominally, Kosovo is still part of a country called Serbia and Montenegro. Hundreds of thousands of people who used to live there cannot return to homes that are sometimes only a few tens of kilometres away, so they are in refugee camps, although because they are still in the same country, they are called internally displaced people. They live in awful conditions, and have done for some time. That applies not only to people from Kosovo but to people from Krajina, which is part of Croatia.
	The NATO and European Union regime in Kosovo is in some ways no better than the one that it replaced. According to all the reports, and the many people who have been there, Kosovo is still a lawless place. Only yesterday, in the debate on asylum, the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) talked about one of her constituents, a Kosovan asylum seeker who does not want to return to Kosovo, as even now he is in fear of his life because of reprisals by the Kosovo Liberation Army, and he is still in hiding. To think that the place is all sorted out now is, I am afraid, erroneous.
	The Minister for Europe admitted earlier this year that fewer than 3,500 of the 260,000 people who fled Kosovo have returned, and that many of the few who remained are still leaving because of the continued abuse and terror. Some particularly gruesome and appalling crimes have taken place there during the year. On 13 August, 60 to 80 children were bathing in the river Bistrica near Gorazdevac, when they were suddenly machine-gunned by two criminals. It took an hour and a half for KFOR to arrive, to find two of them dead and two seriously hurt. No one has been caught for that crime.
	I hope that in the coming year the Government will take the situation seriously and grasp the nettle of Kosovo. I, and the other members of the all-party group on Serbia and Montenegro, will do what we can in the House, and we will not let the subject be buried. At this time of year, we should remember that the spirit of good will and peace on earth is not just for Christmas; it should be for life.

Adrian Bailey: Today I shall celebrate Christmas by talking about health. I shall describe some of the good practice in my constituency, which has some lessons for the health service as a whole, and flag up one or two issues that have been raised with me, which the Government need to take on board if they are to fulfil their strategic objectives for the health service.
	In the debate on the health service, the concentration on the acute sector is understandable—perhaps, because of the passage of the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act this year, it is inevitable— but it is potentially a cause for concern. The disputes and the debate about the acute sector have obscured the real progress that has been made at primary care level as a result of the Government's investment in that sector.
	I represent an inner-city area, which, in common with many others, has poor health statistics. The worst are centred in the traditional Tipton area, which consists of three wards, Princes End, Great Bridge and Tipton Green. All have high death rates from heart disease, stroke, cancer and chest disease. Other problems that are part health-related, part social include high teenage pregnancy rates, smoking and alcohol intake.
	Specifically in order to address areas with acute health problems, the Government introduced personal medical service pilots, which started in 1998 in Tipton and have now been rolled out to some 30 per cent. of the population. In my constituency, the Tipton Care Organisation was set up. It covers a patient population of 37,500, with eight GP practices—one with six doctors and four with only one. It set up a board with representatives of the voluntary sector, the local community health team, tenants and local government. There is a further board consisting of local GPs, one from each practice. That structure has brought together expertise from all sectors of the local health economy and has stimulated new ways of working to benefit the local community, at both primary and acute level.
	The organisation has introduced several innovations that should be singled out for their implications for the NHS. It first appointed two salaried GPs to support the existing GP coverage. Tipton, in common with many other similar areas, is under-provided with GPs. According to its population it should have 22, but at the time in question there were 18. The employment of two female salaried GPs has meant that the organisation has been able to support the practices with only one or two GPs, by providing cover for training and enabling them to reduce waiting times. It has also improved the service by allowing women who prefer to be seen by a female GP the opportunity to do so. It has considerably enhanced the GP service in several areas.
	The organisation has also employed stress counsellors. In conjunction with the Counselling in Primary Care Trust and the health service management centre at Birmingham university, it has provided a specific counselling service in local practices. It is obvious that many visits to GPs are the result of stress-related or psychosomatic illnesses. By providing a specific counselling service, the organisation has improved the well-being of patients and cut the number of visits to GPs by around 29 per cent. I cannot help feeling that if such a service were introduced nationwide, the benefits of the reduced pressure on local GPs would be significant.
	Another project was the introduction of an integrated nursing service for elderly patients in hospital. By assessing their needs in hospital and visiting them regularly once they had returned home, the organisation provided a level of support that has cut the average stay in Sandwell hospital by one and a half days for patients from the Tipton area, in comparison with the rest of the local area. Obviously, this has enormous implications in terms of pressure on waiting lists in the acute sector. It is a clear demonstration of the beneficial impact that investment in the primary care sector can have on the acute sector.
	Other projects involve dealing with diabetes in terms of a proactive chiropody programme. The identification of no fewer than 956 diabetics who were not attending chiropody services and the establishment of a proactive chiropody monitoring service has resulted in nearly 10 per cent. being identified as requiring acute treatment. It is estimated that nine amputations were prevented as a result of the provision of that treatment. Many elderly people with diabetes do not understand its impact on their legs and feet. The setting up of a chiropody service to monitor that brings potential benefits to their health and well-being, and there is a substantial impact on the health service.
	I remember that, when I was a young boy an elderly auntie who lived with us had diabetes, but did not reveal to anybody—not even her doctor—the extent of the problem with her legs. That resulted in an amputation and subsequently she died. So I know at first hand just how essential that sort of service is in benefiting individuals and the acute sector.
	Another and startling approach is being made to the medical management of drugs in the community. A survey was done of people, mainly over 65 and mainly suffering from coronary heart disease or diabetes, who were taking more than four sorts of medication, to find out how effective the drugs were. To my surprise—or perhaps not to my surprise—many of those who were suffering from a range of ailments could not read the labels, did not understand the instructions, or could not access the drugs from the packet. As a result, there was a significant level of over-prescription and lower efficacy than was needed. That in turn can lead to hospitalisation or residential care. As a result of action and support for elderly people in that category, the need for hospitalisation and residential care has been reduced, as has the drugs budget.
	All these programmes have been carried out as a result of the extra investment at primary health care level. They demonstrate clear cost benefits and benefits for the acute sector.
	One or two concerns have been raised with me. The first is about the medium-term provision of GP services within areas such as mine. In my area, in common with many former industrial areas, the local health service is highly dependent on the first generation of Asian doctors who came here 25 to 30 years ago. They have done sterling service for the people of Sandwell in my constituency. However, many will come up for retirement in the next few years. Despite the 12,000 extra doctors, there is a real danger that these areas will not be able to attract the number of doctors needed to sustain the good work that has been begun. That is obviously a challenge for the Government.
	One way of dealing with the problem is to follow the lead of the United States by training and recruiting physician assistants. The anomaly is that Tipton Care Organisation has recruited two American physician assistants. Other primary care trusts are doing the same. There is a recognised role and potential use of physician assistants, but this country does not train them or recruit enough of them. They are educated and trained to a high level, although not to the level expected of a doctor, and carry out a range of support services under the supervision of a doctor, releasing the doctor's time for more specialised purposes. Physician assistants are widely used in the United States.
	Unfortunately, physician assistants do not have a professional body. Work is being done with the General Medical Council to recognise them, and Birmingham university is involved in establishing a training facility, but it needs funding. I hope that the Government will seriously consider the proposal as a way of bridging the doctor-provision gap, which may emerge over the next few years as a result of the retirement of so many ethnic minority doctors.
	There is another possible source of support. It came as a surprise to me to learn that about 500 medical orderlies leave the Army services each year. Those people would not necessarily become doctors, but given their basic medical training allied with new courses to train physician assistants, they are a source of medical expertise that is currently lost and could be used within local health care economies. The Government should seriously consider recruiting and training medical orderlies to promote the Government's long-term health objectives.
	My area is pioneering joined-up thinking, utilising the Government's extra investment in primary care to provide better local services and to relieve pressure on acute services. However, I am worried that that investment may not be sustained. I hope that the Government will invest in recruitment to ensure that the good work that has taken place over the past few years is not lost because of a lack of forward planning.

Bob Spink: As this is the Christmas Adjournment debate, I wish you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and all at the Palace of Westminster a very happy Christmas and a peaceful new year. But while we enjoy the warmth of our homes, friends and family this Christmas, let us remember those in need.
	There are homeless people in Castle Point and we have failed far too many of them. We must find ways to make more housing units available to help the many worthy cases that have been betrayed by the system. I include myself, as well as the Government and the local council, in that criticism. We must treat homeless people with dignity and charity, and that should be remembered at Christmas.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Mr. Rosindell) mentioned the celebrations of an anniversary regarding Gibraltar. I throw in my call for decent celebrations of the 200th anniversary of Nelson's day on 22 October 2005. The Canvey Island Conservative club and the nation at large have noted Labour's politically correct reluctance to celebrate that anniversary, which marks a remarkable victory of our country over the French. As the celebration may take place after the next election, I call on my Front-Bench spokesmen, who by that time will have formed the Government, to ensure that we have a substantial and appropriate celebration of that remarkable battle and victory.
	In a previous Adjournment debate on 3 April this year, the Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office said:
	"The hon. Member for Castle Point . . . confidently predicted many gains for his party in the local elections. We shall see."—[Official Report, 3 April 2003; Vol. 402, c. 1154.]
	Since the Minister is so interested, let me tell the House what actually happened. At the time when the hon. Gentleman made those comments, Labour controlled the council, which had just 15 Conservative councillors. After the election, the Conservatives had 39 councillors and Labour just two. I ask hon. Members to join me in congratulating all 41 candidates who won that election, including the two Labour ones. I hope that they will serve their community assiduously and with dignity over the years.
	I should like to start—yes, I have not even started yet—with three good news stories in a spirit of Christmas good will. First, stopping under-age drinking on the streets and tackling youth drunkenness is incredibly important, as we all know from our surgeries. A crucial weapon in allowing the police to do their job in that respect was contained in the under-age drinking Bill, which was intended to allow the police to remove alcohol from kiddies—perhaps 16-year-olds, or perhaps even 10-year-olds. I introduced that private Member's Bill in 1997, and the police were given those powers on its enactment.
	The Prime Minister then removed those powers from the police with his Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001, in an act of political stupidity that is typical of this Labour Government. In fact, the Association of Chief Police Officers and communities throughout this country very much regretted that astounding move. The good news is that, following pressure from me and other hon. Members on both sides of the House, the Government did a U-turn, and in the Licensing Act 2003, they reinstated the powers that my Act originally gave to the police. I urge all police forces to use those powers fully to protect not just those in communities that sometimes feel under siege from youth street nuisance and crime, but the kids themselves, because 90-odd per cent. of first use of drugs by young people takes place under the influence of alcohol, and youngsters need protection from that.
	Of course the second good-news story relates to Cliffe. An airport in the Thames estuary would cause serious quality-of-life and environmental damage to the people of south Essex and Kent, including noise and air pollution and much else that we all know about. So I thank the Government for rejecting the Cliffe proposal. My constituents will feel that I was right to give them their say—to consult them, when the Government failed to consult them on that matter—and to fight on their behalf. They will feel that we won an important battle. Can the Minister confirm whether any further scheme for an airport in the Thames estuary will be ruled out for the entire White Paper 30-year strategic planning period, so that my constituents will know that we have won the war?
	While you are in the Chair, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should reiterate my support for the excellent campaign against the extra runway at Stansted, which must now get off the ground, and I know that you will be leading that campaign in your usual excellent manner.
	The third good-news story, of course, involves Canvey Island football club, which passes into the new year at the top of the league, with a remarkable string of performances based on great effort, fitness and ability on the pitch at Park Lane. The club looks set for promotion into the conference next year, but I shall say no more about that because I do not wish to tempt fate.
	Hospice funding is very important, and I have raised the issue several times in the House, including with the Prime Minister. Adult hospices get 32 per cent. of their funding from public funds, and children's hospices receive an average of 4 per cent. Little Haven children's hospice in my constituency, however, receives only 1.5 per cent. public funding. That seems too low, and I will encourage Ministers to consider that, to recognise the care and dedication of the staff and volunteers in the hospice movement, and to recognise the generosity of spirit of fundraisers who raised the other 98.5 per cent. for Little Haven—I am thinking of the Hadleigh, Benfleet and Canvey Island Conservative clubs that, year on year, raise money for that hospice and for other local good causes. The answer is not, however, as the Government believe, to redirect lottery money from other good causes to the hospice movement. The answer is that public Exchequer funds should be made available at a rate of 40 per cent. for both children's and adult hospices, which can then move forward and provide their wonderful service to families and children at the most difficult time in their lives.
	I move now to the old issue of Canvey's third road, for which I apologise to the House. With neighbouring councils changing political control—Basildon this year, and Thurrock, I hope, next year—councillors may be minded to take a more responsible, community-spirited attitude towards a third road from Canvey Island going across parts of their borough. I ask them to do that, to be co-operative and to think about the wider community interest in that.
	I want to raise a few questions about the Child Support Agency. The agency wrote to me on 11 December:
	"The Agency began processing"—
	by which, I think, it means assessing—
	"new cases under the new child support scheme from 3 March 2003. A timescale has not been agreed when existing cases will be transferred to the new scheme. These cases will transfer once Ministers are satisfied that the new arrangements are working well."
	My question is: why is the scheme not working well now, after almost a year of operation? Why do we not yet know that the scheme is working well so that we can confidently make sure that everybody is on an equal footing? To use different schemes to assess parents on the arbitrary date of 3 March seems to me to be inequitable. I therefore urge the Minister to consider the matter with a view to bring all cases under the new scheme as soon as possible.
	I now move on to an Essex county council letter that was faxed to head teachers across Essex on 16 December, which referred to the primary school meals service. Essex county council sought to review the matter and to seek new tenders, for instance, to improve food quality and to increase usage of fresh products. We can all agree with that. Nevertheless, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you may not know—I certainly did not—that a decision had been taken by Essex county council not to accept any of the tenders, and to stop suddenly the primary school meals service and to put the responsibility on head teachers, who, probably from April next year, must make their own arrangements. That may be the right move, it may be financially necessary, and it may enable head teachers and primary schools to provide better school meals for children. There has been no consultation, however. We cannot simply make such decisions and impose them without consultation in this day and age. I therefore call on the Minister to seek a consultation on the matter. May I also say to him that the reason for all this is that the Government have withheld reasonable funding from Essex county council in their wrong-minded move to shift money up to Labour-controlled councils further north?
	I turn to the important issue of post office closures which, in Castlepoint, is as disastrous for local communities, pensioners and vulnerable people as it is in other constituencies. My hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) made an excellent, stirring speech about the matter, so I shall not go into further details, save to cite the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters, which told me on 11 December:
	"Not only are people being forced change the way in which they collect their benefits . . . the Government has made it difficult for people to choose the post office based product . . . the way in which the direct payment programme has developed will undermine the ability of the national post office network to sustain itself."
	As the NFSP says, Government policy is leading to post office closures, not staff retirement. If it were Government policy to make post offices viable, people would want to replace staff who were retiring. The public should not be in any doubt about who is to blame. They will, I am sure, let Labour know who is to blame at the next election.
	Finally—I see that you are smiling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, at that word—the House will not be surprised if I return to a familiar subject in the usual suspects' debate. The hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Dr. Vis) mentioned Cyprus in his opening contribution. I congratulate the opposition parties in north Cyprus on their success in recent elections in which they gained 50 per cent. of the seats and the majority of the popular vote. That is remarkable and praiseworthy in view of the widespread intimidation and corruption, multi-media bias and the rigging of the electoral register. Surely, however, pressure must be put on the Turkish Government to put pressure in turn on Mr. Denktash to make a settlement based on the Annan proposal so that, even at this late stage, a united island of Cyprus can accede to Europe in May 2004.

Harry Barnes: Rhodia Eco Services Ltd. is a chemical manufacturing plant in Staveley in my constituency. It employs 75 people directly but also engages drivers and contractors, so an additional 40 to 60 people are employed on an ad hoc basis. Rhodia is the successor to Staveley Chemicals, which used to be a major employer in the town.
	The Rhodia site is in a prominent position near the centre of Staveley. Everyone is aware of its presence, as well as its past. Homes in Staveley are issued with an action card telling people what to do if there is an emergency at the plant. It tells them about the initial warning system and the siren that is sounded. They are told to go indoors, shut windows and doors and keep away from cellars and basements. They are told to tune into local radio stations to find out what is happening. When the all-clear siren sounds, the emergency is over. The plant did not used to have an all-clear siren, and when there was a false alarm people hid for a number of hours, not knowing that it was all over. I raised that matter with officials, and the extra signal was introduced.
	There have been four incidents at the plant in the past 18 months. I shall give details of the most recent emergency, which occurred on 3 November. The details are derived from information that I obtained at a meeting at Rhodia Eco Services in Staveley on 7 November. The meeting was attended by representatives from Derbyshire county council emergency services department, the firm's general manager and site manager, representatives of the Health and Safety Executive and of the Environment Agency, and members of the police and fire services. A local borough councillor, Jim MacManus, was also present.
	I shall describe the incident in detail. Recommissioning was taking place at the chlorine plant. Because of a manual disconnection, a valve was left open, leading to an escape of chlorine gas. The procedure has been corrected, and that manual operation no longer takes place, so the problem that caused the incident has been resolved.
	The gas escape happened between 1 pm and 1.15 pm. No one can be more precise, as there was some confusion in the plant. Six workers were affected—two employees, and four contractors. The ambulance service was finally called, and ambulance staff triggered the proper emergency procedures. The fire service was contacted, as were the police at 1.31 pm.
	Although the company asked the ambulance service for help, it did not set the emergency procedures in train. That happened because the company finally acted to protect six workers, and to have them taken to hospital. The siren to which I referred earlier was not sounded until 1.50 pm, but people in the community were suffering distress well before then.
	Staveley hall contains the offices of Staveley town council, but rooms there are also rented out to businesses. A strong smell, something like bleach, was detected in the car park, and many rooms were later rendered uninhabitable. Some of the events to which I refer took place before the siren was sounded. Rhodia Eco Services staff were contacted, and responded by suggesting the windows be opened to let the chlorine out—even though the procedures laid down require windows to be locked.
	Many people suffered much discomfort, reporting runny eyes, hair that became like straw, and reddened complexions. Two hundred people took shelter in the local Morrisons supermarket, and others hid away in local schools. There was some confusion in the schools: although some people claimed to have heard the siren, kids were kept in, particularly at four schools in the area—at Netherthorpe, Norbriggs and Woodhouse in my constituency, and at Poolsbrook in the constituency of the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes). The schools in my area were quite close to where the emergency happened, and they were visited by the police.
	The siren sounded for 45 minutes, between 1.50 pm and 2.35 pm. It was switched off to preserve the batteries. People depended on local radio for information about the emergency that was still taking place. No all-clear was sounded.
	At 3.19 pm, a build-up of chlorine was discovered in pipes on the plant. Things did not look good, and it seemed likely that the emergency might have to last for another four to six hours. At 3.27 pm, roadblocks were put in place in various areas of the town, including around the plant and in places where the prevailing winds had blown the chlorine. At 3.53 pm, it was decided to move children from the schools, although there were no school buses, and the 200 people were let out of Morrisons and the other shops, as it was felt that it would be better for them to get to their homes than to be locked away for any longer. It was not until 5.50 pm that the all-clear siren was sounded.
	An inquiry is being conducted by inspectors from the Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency, which, under 1999 regulations, form the competent authority for the control of major accident hazards. They need to face up to a number of problems. Should not the inquiry be conducted publicly, or at least have some public element, so that the people who were affected are in a better position to describe what occurred? Why did not Rhodia alert the emergency services when it called for an ambulance, and why did it not do so at an earlier stage? Why did emergency services follow an odd sequence of events by blocking roads, then letting people out of buildings to return to their homes, which seems to be the wrong way round? In one case, a young woman at Staveley Netherthorpe school, who lived in Wingerworth, had to walk outside the area of the roadblocks to Brimington, in another part of Staveley, in order to be collected and taken home. That led to a great deal of confusion.
	The town council subsequently called for a public inquiry and for the closure of the plant. A few years ago, one could not have imagined that that would happen, because everybody's employment was dependent on Staveley Chemicals. In 1998, two incidents involving escapes of acid gas in Killamarsh in my constituency led to a massive campaign to close a similar-sized plant, which then transferred its operations. Now that plant is operated by Onyx, which took over from SARP. Chemical reclamation no longer takes place there, but new processes are operating. There might be some future for the Staveley site, but not for the processes that caused the problems and led to the situation whereby action cards had to be issued.
	Of the six workers who were taken to hospital, three returned to work the following day, two returned the day after, and one was signed off work for a week by his GP. He subsequently packed in his job as he was suffering from panic attacks. I have asked, with that person's agreement, for the Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency to interview him. No one has been in touch with him since he resigned, either from the firm itself or from the officialdom that is engaged in the investigations.
	I shall outline my second suggestion. At SARP UK, we had a visit from the then Minister for the Environment that eased the process of change and helped with later legislative changes on environmental matters. We need a visit from the current Minister for the Environment, who is responsible for the Environment Agency or perhaps the Minister for Work, who has responsibilities for the Health and Safety Executive. A visit took place to the site when it was under previous ownership, but that happened when the Conservatives were in office, and a Conservative Minister visited.
	There are moves to arrange a public meeting in the area, and I shall attend it. It would be fruitful if a ministerial visit could take place at the time of meeting. I needed the opportunity to put those matters on the record. I have also looked for others devices to do that. This is my last opportunity to raise the matter before Christmas.
	Let me comment on the festive season. Some of my constituents will have a problem. They have received a letter from Serco Rail Maintenance, saying that essential railway engineering works will take place in the Clay Cross north junction area. Most of the Clay Cross railway is in a tunnel, and outside areas such as North Wingfield will therefore be affected. The letter states:
	"Please be advised that essential engineering work is to be undertaken in the Clay Cross North Junction area which is located on the railway line adjacent to your home.
	This work is programmed to take place between 2200 hrs 24th December 2003 until 0700 hrs 27th December 2003."
	The problem is that people will have noise and disruption for Christmas. I hope that Serco Rail Maintenance, which I shall contact, will respond properly to their anxieties so that my constituents can have a peaceful Christmas, as I hope we all shall.

Laurence Robertson: It is rather a coincidence that I am following the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) because I want to raise a similar issue. It relates to a company called Cleansing Services Group, which operated—I use the past tense, thank goodness—in the village of Sandhurst in my constituency. Three years ago, an explosion happened at the works, which was a chemical works although it was not authorised to be so. It had planning permission from the county council to treat oily waste and such substances, yet the Environment Agency gave it a licence to deal with much more hazardous waste, even though it had no planning permission for that.
	Many villagers warned the Environment Agency, other agencies and people that things were not right at the site. A whistleblower was sacked for various reasons and won his case at the industrial tribunal. I visited several times and warned the agencies. They took some notice, but not enough. Three years ago, the place exploded. The effects on people's mental and physical health are difficult to measure. I shall not go into the same amount of detail as the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire because I want to cover one or two other issues and I have raised the matter previously.
	The pressure from villagers has driven the company off the site, and that might offer some encouragement to the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire. It decided that the best way in which to proceed was to sell the site, and we are all thankful for that. However, the pain, misery and effects of the explosion persist.
	I want a public inquiry to look not only into that incident and into the company, although those aspects should certainly form part of its terms of reference, but into the way in which the Environment Agency, the Health and Safety Executive, the county council and, to an extent, the health authority were monitoring the site. They were given many warnings about it and apparently visited it a number of times, yet they were unable or unwilling to take the necessary action. Such a public inquiry might determine that those bodies did not have enough power to take the action that we felt necessary, although I do not think that that would be the case.
	My constituents, like everyone else, pay an awful lot of tax—an increasing amount, sadly, under this Government, but that is not my main point—to fund those agencies on whom they rely to look after their health and the environment. That is the agencies' job, yet in this case they have signally failed to do it. To bring justice to my constituents who live in the village of Sandhurst and, perhaps more importantly, to avoid similar situations arising in the future, there should be a public inquiry into the performance of the agencies that were supposed to be monitoring that site.
	The Deputy Prime Minister and the former Minister for the Environment, the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher), were very generous with their time shortly after the explosion. They had a number of meetings with me, and said that they would consider holding a public inquiry. First, however, they wanted to see whether there would be a court case against the company. It was, in fact, taken to court and, a week or two ago, was fined £250,000 and ordered to pay £400,000 costs. It deserves to pay at least that. My point is that that court case is now out of the way, so the Government could decide to hold a public inquiry into what went on when Cleansing Services Group was not being monitored properly and when the explosion happened, causing so many problems for my constituents.
	That company is known as CSG. I now want to move on to SEN, which stands for special educational needs. I have raised this subject many times in the House, in an Adjournment debate and on other occasions. It is a big issue in Gloucestershire. The county council there is run by an unholy Lib-Lab pact—I make that point only so that it is clearly understood; it is not a party political point—which has a policy of questioning the viability of the special schools in the area. It seems to want to close them all down.
	A few years ago, I served on the Standing Committee that considered the Special Educational Needs and Disability Bill, which was meant to provide for greater inclusion of children with special needs in mainstream schools. I was assured by the Minister at the time that it should not be seen as giving a green light for the wholesale closure of special schools: I think that those are pretty close to the Minister's words. In Gloucestershire, however, it has had the effect of giving that green light, and the county council is trying to bring about such a wholesale closure.
	The Bownham Park special school in Stroud has been closed, and I understand that two schools in the Forest of Dean have been closed, although they are to be put on the site of a new school. That has still had the effect of merging two schools into one, however. The general drift in the county is towards the closure of special schools. There is a very good special school in my constituency called Alderman Knight school, whose future is currently out to public consultation. Given the previous actions of the county council, we know what its desires and intentions are.
	I have asked many times for the Secretary of State to visit Alderman Knight school; I promise that he would be made very welcome there. I want him to listen not just to the politicians, but to the teachers and the head teachers of the mainstream and special schools, who are all saying the same thing. Nor do I want him to listen only to the parents. I want him to listen to the pupils. I want him to stand in front of them, as I have done, when they break down in tears and speak of their fears of being forced to go to a mainstream school. Listen to the pupils, not me—it does not matter what I think. Listen to their fears. If all the special schools are closed, where is the choice? It is, of course, a fact that many pupils with special educational needs go to mainstream schools and do very well, which should continue. My only point is that that is not right for all pupils. If those schools close, these pupils will have no option.
	The Government's intention may be inclusion—I do not generally dispute that—but those pupils will not be included in future life. They will be excluded from society because they will not have had the care and education that they need as special cases. They will not cope in mainstream schools, and they will therefore be excluded from society in future life. I ask the Minister to come to Gloucestershire and see what is going on. He should look those children in the eye and tell me whether he agrees with it. I do not think he will.
	We have had CSG and SEN. Now I want to discuss the OFT. The Office of Fair Trading is another subject on which I have held an Adjournment debate. It is carrying out various investigations, as hon. Members know. The investigation that particularly concerns me is the one being carried out into horse racing. Again, I have a constituency interest. My Tewkesbury constituency contains Prestbury Park, which is the Cheltenham race course. In my view, it is the greatest race course in the world. I do not necessarily fear for it as much as for the smaller race courses—the Herefords, the Ludlows and the Southwells. Those are feeder tracks where horses, jockeys, trainers and owners may start their careers. They are very important, particularly to national hunt racing.
	The OFT is investigating the control of British horse racing, and it says that the British Horseracing Board's control of the fixture list is non-competitive. Technically, I suppose that the OFT might have a point. However, despite the fact that this industry is always disunited and has more arguments and rows than any other I have ever known, the OFT has unbelievably managed to bring all the warring factions together in opposition to its plans. It may have a point: there may be things in British horse racing that need to improve. The issue as regards control of the fixture list is not the only one it has identified. There is also the sale of data rights to one buyer rather than a number of buyers, which we have heard about in relation to BSkyB. A parallel case has been dealt with in the European Union recently.
	The OFT says that a number of points in British racing have to change. The interesting thing is that the British Horseracing Board—like racing itself—is not denying that it has to make changes. It is making changes, but we are very concerned that the OFT could end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater if it forces those changes through in a heavy-handed way.
	Who says so? The industry says so, as I do, but interestingly the Minister for Sport and Tourism appears to agree with my points, as does the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe), the competition Minister. They have been honest enough to tell me that. How can it be that the OFT is doing something that the Government and the industry do not want it to do? Somehow it has become so powerful that it can do that against the wishes of the Government and the industry. Surely that cannot be right. I know that the competition Minister and the sports Minister have made their views known to the OFT, but I hope that the Government's representations to it will be powerful enough to persuade the OFT not to drop the case entirely but to proceed sensibly and take on board points made to it by the many strands of the racing industry.
	Those are the main issues that I wanted to raise. I want to finish on one point; I do not want to take up any more time. In wishing everyone in the House a happy Christmas and a peaceful new year, I echo the views expressed, perhaps differently, by other hon. Members, one of whom was my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall). Many people in this country and throughout the world cannot look forward to a happy Christmas because of their personal circumstances. A year ago, I was in Ethiopia, and I witnessed the desperate poverty in that country at that time. Thank the Lord things are slightly easier this year, but countries such as Ethiopia and others in Africa that suffer from war, poverty and disease can be forgotten when we are concentrating, perhaps rightly, on Iraq or on the muddle in Europe over attempts to introduce a constitution. Many important issues may make us forget the plight of the starving people who live only to exist, and that of the children who each and every day have to walk miles to another village just to bring water back to their own village. That cannot be an acceptable life for anyone. When we concentrate on the problems of Iraq and the European constitution, we should not forget the plight of the third world.
	Mr. Deputy Speaker, a very happy Christmas to you.

John Cryer: Thank you for calling me in this Adjournment debate, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We have heard speeches about airport development, including those of my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst) and the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall), who has fought a long campaign with my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) against the proposed runway at Heathrow. As a member of the Campaign group, I assure the hon. Gentleman that at every meeting—on a quiet night we may have as few as 200 or 300 members of the parliamentary Labour party—we always have a rousing rendition of "Jerusalem" followed by the blood sacrifice of a bourgeois deviationist or two, or perhaps a captain of industry or a banker. That is a joke, in case some of my hon. Friends are getting worried.
	The first issue that I want to raise is a bit more prosaic than that. There are quite a few landfill sites in my constituency, and most of the operators are responsible and have due regard to the local community. However, a company called Ahern, which operates a site at Ayletts farm in Rainham, is completely irresponsible and has no consideration for the local community. For many months, gases that give rise to smells have drifted across Rainham and the houses in the southern part of my constituency. That has affected the local populace. Attempts by the Environment Agency to control Ahern and to get it to take appropriate action, such as the installation of a burner, have come to nothing. Ahern is happy to make mountains of cash out of the taxpayer, but it treats the local community with utter contempt. All the attempts by the public sector to get the company to realise its responsibilities have so far come to nothing.
	I have written to the Minister for the Environment. A solution for the future, which may help my constituents, would be the establishment of a community forum on a statutory basis, so that companies such as Ahern would have to meet members of the local community, the local authority, the Environment Agency and other groups. That may enable at least an examination of the records of some of the firms involved.
	I emphasise that the vast majority of landfill operators are perfectly responsible and conduct themselves properly—especially Cleanaway, which is the biggest operator in my constituency. However, a few smaller firms behave irresponsibly.
	I also want to raise the issue of Sure Start schemes, which have been successful in many areas, including in my own borough. However, there is a problem, not with the schemes, but with the criteria on the basis of which they are run. They are ward based, and if it is a mixed ward and the deprivation indices are too high because there are well-off areas alongside poverty-stricken areas, Sure Start funding cannot be accessed for those areas.
	An attempt was made to obtain Sure Start funds for the Mardyke estate in my constituency. Unfortunately, because the ward contained better-off areas, we could not get those funds. The local primary care trust said, in a recent report on the estate,
	"the PCT has investigated the possibility of establishing a Sure Start on the Estate, but it is too small to meet the qualification criteria set by the Sure Start Unit. About half of the households are lone occupancy, and lone parent households are quite prevalent."
	That demonstrates that the criteria are too broad. If they were based on neighbourhoods rather than wards, my constituents on the estate would benefit. That is not, however, a criticism of Sure Start, which has proved very successful in much of the country.
	The hon. Member for Romford (Mr. Rosindell) mentioned the raw deal given to the London borough of Havering, which we both represent, by central Government for a long time. There is some truth in what he said, but the borough recently received £3 million from Transport for London. I hope that the money will be spent wisely, because that is not always the case with our Tory council. For instance, it spent half a million pounds on raising councillors' allowances, while simultaneously jacking up the council tax by 17 per cent. That went down like a lead balloon. It spent a further half a million pounds on getting rid of the former chief executive, while the council tax rocketed. Those are just two examples. People are deeply unhappy when they see money frittered away on pet projects while the council jacks up the tax and moans about the raw deal that it gets from central Government.
	Part of my constituency is in the Thames gateway region. In the next few years, more housing is to be built on the London riverside section, which covers my constituency and principally, on the north side of the Thames, those of my hon. Friends the Members for Dagenham (Jon Cruddas) and for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay). One of the first tranches of new housing will be at Dovers Corner, a former industrial estate. It is not in good condition: there are all sorts of environmental problems. The developer wants high-level, high-density housing, but that would not be in keeping with the surrounding area, because it would be on the edge of what is still to some extent a village. It is still has a village centre, Rainham.
	I want to see more housing in my constituency and in my borough. Since the right to buy was introduced in 1979, thousands if not hundreds of thousands of council homes have been got rid of and have not been replaced by more council homes, or by housing association or housing trust properties. We need more public housing to give hope to the people who come to my advice surgeries—and, no doubt, those of many other Members—and say, "Our home is overcrowded. We want a house rather than a flat, or a flat with two bedrooms rather than one." There is not much help for them now, at least in my constituency.
	What we do not want is a repeat of the mistakes of the 1960s and 1970s, when tower blocks were built in my constituency and others. If we had our time again, we would not do that; but there is the potential for a similar mistake if high-density housing schemes are allowed to proceed in east London. There must also be proper provision of doctors' surgeries and other facilities.
	I also think that development regulations should be tightened. Local people were shown plans for a branch of B&Q at Roneo Corner, on the boundary between my constituency and Romford. The plans were approved, but when the building was finished it turned out that they had been changed. Local people then found that local authority planning officers had given permission for certain changes to be made. Those changes went down very badly with the people who live in the area; there is no way that they would have approved them had they known what was happening. Of course, they were faced with a fait accompli. The development had been built, and little could be done to reverse it. It is set in concrete and cement, and in brick and mortar.
	I want the regulations to be tightened, so that certain guarantees have to be provided in respect of, for example, the size of a general practitioner's surgery, access to schools and the size and height of housing. That way, developers cannot make changes after getting outline planning permission and go ahead with such building.
	One or two Members—particularly the hon. Member for Romford, who is my constituency neighbour—have mentioned the European constitution. I happen to be an opponent of the European constitution. I am also the chairman of Labour For A Referendum, which takes the view that profound constitutional changes, whether introduced through the European Union or through any other body, have to be put to the people. There has to be a plebiscite on such profound changes.
	I have the uneasy feeling that if the Conservatives were not in opposition, they would put through any idea that happened to emerge from Brussels, because that is their record when in government. While pretending to wrap themselves in the Union flag, they agree to anything that Brussels lays before them. In the beginning, in 1972, they took us into the then Common Market without consulting the people in way whatsoever; it took a Labour Government to give us a referendum on membership. In 1986, they gave us the Single European Act—the single biggest reduction in democratic accountability and power that any British Government in living memory have undertaken. Then they gave us the Maastricht treaty—another massive abrogation of sovereignty and power—which was duly followed by the growth and stability pact.
	So I do not take too seriously the argument advanced by Conservative Members—with a few honourable exceptions—whereby they are paint themselves in the colours of the critics of the European Union and argue that they would act completely different and would give the EU a hard time. I tend to think that, if ever they did return to government, they would have a complete change of heart, as they always do.
	It just remains for me to wish you, Madam Deputy Speaker, the Members of the House and its staff a happy Christmas.

Colin Challen: Many excellent speeches have been made this afternoon, so I hope that mine will not prove an anticlimax. I particularly enjoyed the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst), who spoke eloquently in defence of his constituency, and against the juggernaut—if I may mix my metaphors—of the stupendous increase in aviation. Our policy in that regard seems to be not predict and provide, but promote and provide.
	I also welcomed the contribution of the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson), who was the first to mention the developing world. That is a particularly important issue to raise in a Christmas Adjournment debate. Christmas is many things, but these days it seems to be more about conspicuous consumption than anything else. It is in that context that I shall talk about sustainable development, which has become the catchphrase of the new millennium. "Sustainable development" are the new buzz words that define all that Government and policy seek to achieve. I want to look at what those words mean in practice, and in doing so I must also explain what those words ought to mean.
	Twenty years ago, the United Nations established the World Commission on Environment and Development. In 1987, it published a report known as the Brundtland report, after the commission's chairman, Gro Harlem Brundtland. The report defines sustainable development as
	"development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
	The report was by no means perfect—far from it—and nor was its definition, but we should contrast that definition with what the Government now use as their axiom of sustainable development: a better quality of life for everyone, now and for generations to come. That sounds much the same as the previous definition, but there is a key difference: the word "need" has been substituted for the word "quality". Those are two entirely different things, and the change allows for a much looser, and, in my view, diminished approach to the concept of sustainable development. There is a world of difference between providing what people need, and improving everybody's quality of life.
	We now have a concept of sustainable development that draws no distinction between the unsustainable quality of life of a tiny proportion of the world's population, and the life of the great majority of that population. To put it another way, as Mahatma Ghandi said when asked if India should have the same standard of living as Britain:
	"It took Britain half the resources of the planet to achieve this prosperity; how many planets will a country like India require?"
	However, we march on regardless of that obvious painful truth. It is easy to see why. Nobody wants to say that we cannot carry on as we are, because if they did, they would soon be out of a job. So now we talk not about the poor majority of the world who have unmet basic needs, but about a more amorphous promise that everyone's quality of life must be improved—a promise that does not distinguish between the likes of Bill Gates and an Indian peasant, or between Rupert Murdoch and a Chinese sweatshop worker. Our new all-inclusive, wealthy-friendly policy of sustainable development admits of no exceptions.
	How unfair and inequitable that is. It reflects current thinking that it is people like Gates and Murdoch who will be the saviours of sustainable development, because as the major business drivers of globalisation, they have in their hands the formula that will drive up global trade and save poor benighted countries from self-destruction. Many of those countries had first to contend with colonialisation, but that early history of globalisation is often neglected. Then they had to contend with the cold war, when many poor countries were used as pawns in spheres of influence. That is the period when many were pressed to acquire unsustainable levels of debt. Finally, they have become the beneficiaries of the post-modernist Washington consensus way of thinking, which dresses up our concerns with softer tones and kind words. Now the poor of the world are to be patronised by our business culture.
	However, the massive benefits of decades of western-style development are nowhere better illustrated than they are in the United States, as opposed to the shanty towns of Mumbai or Sao Paulo. As The New York Review of Books says,
	"More than 40 per cent of total income in America now goes to the highest 10 per cent. of earners, about the same level as in the 1920s and well up from 30 or so per cent. between the early 1940s and the late 1970s. The average income of the highest-earning 5 per cent. of families was nineteen times that of the lowest 20 per cent. in 1999; in 1979 it was a little more than eleven times. The wealthiest 1 per cent of households now own more than 40 per cent of all assets, including homes and financial investments (after deducting debt)—higher than in any year since 1929."
	Even by the inadequate standards of current economic policy, inequality is spreading in the developed world. For all the efforts of the past 20 years, and for all the rhetoric of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organisation et al, inequality has worsened, not improved. The way in which developing countries are expected to ape our style of living has made matters worse, because, as Gandhi suggested, it is bound to.
	I am thankful to say that new ways of thinking are emerging, and are even being considered in the mainstream. Kyoto was an example of that, no matter how diluted its outcomes were designed to be. Clearly, international resistance to this sense of global responsibility is still very strong, and no one would argue that Kyoto, even if it were ratified by all the main greenhouse gas producers, would have a huge impact on the acceleration of global warming. What Kyoto did achieve, however, was a sense of shared responsibility—the first real benchmark for the principle that public goods should have a value in the global economic system. Public goods not only cover those areas such as health and education, which governments in civilised societies should deliver, but include biodiversity, the air we breathe, the sustainable management of natural resources and protection of the oceans, among others. It is easy to see how we value the former, as we can put a price on a hip replacement or the building of a new school, but until recently nobody gave much thought to the cost of resource depletion or environmental damage.
	Indeed, an environmental bad could easily be seen as an economic good if, for example, a big clean-up of pollution leads to economic growth. The sinking of an oil tanker off the coast of Spain or Alaska may knock a hole in the local economy, but if that leads to economic activity during the clean-up and afterwards, the extra spending will probably exceed the original economic loss for fisheries or tourism, so leading to economic growth. Such thinking is clearly absurd, but will continue for as long as economics are divorced from the environment. The only way it seems to me that the dichotomy can be reconciled is to ensure that the application of the theory of economic growth is forced fully to internalise all the costs involved in creating so-called economic wealth in the first place. If this were to happen, we would see some strange reversals in the fortunes of countries—those previously known as developed would be heavily in debt, while those mainly in the south would have great surpluses.
	At the moment we simply take it for granted that we can obtain commodities from the south very cheaply even if, as in the example of coffee, the prices in the shops do not reflect that. But western consumers will still benefit in one way or another from the southern coffee-growing countries' hidden subsidy, through the distribution of dividends, higher pensions or better paid jobs. If we had to pay the real price for oil, through the costs of the enormous environmental damage its extraction causes, or the costs of the wars, pollution and corruption it causes, we might be a bit more anxious to change to the alternatives.
	Given my recent criticisms of China's unreconstructed dash for growth, I am pleased to see that its attitudes are changing. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has apparently said that development must be sustainable, and there are plans to draw up a green index that would be created by subtracting values given to resource depletion from the standard measure of economic growth. If China perfects that system, it will probably be the first country to do so. For China, the need to achieve a more sustainable form of development is pressing, as its exponential growth has already brought some very immediate problems, as in the case of one Chinese city which is having to curb the building of skyscrapers, because of the instability of ground conditions brought on by a shrinking water table, or the incredible news that another city is banning cyclists from some roads because they are getting too congested with cars.
	We might permit ourselves some wry amusement at that turn of events, but it is happening here by default. Fewer people walk or cycle to school, and more are travelling by car. Perhaps our congested roads are seen as dangerous too, so the solution is to put more cars on to the roads. Of course, the responsibility to tackle that always lies with someone else. We think, "If only other people would change their ways first," or, "If only the Government would do something about it." That I am afraid is our attitude, and I have some sympathy with it because I know that such attitudes are deeply ingrained in our culture, and that has been made worse in the last 20 years by the attacks made on society on behalf of capital, which in that example has far more to gain by selling cars than it has by encouraging children to walk to school.
	The insatiable global demand for our style of living can hardly be denied to others by us unless we change our ways. So it is our responsibility to take tough decisions to lead the way out of this impasse. It inevitably means that we must reassess what we mean by wealth. But if we stick to the idea that sustainable development refers to some open-ended commitment to quality of life rather than to our needs, we will find it difficult to gain a more comprehensive concept of wealth and change the way we measure it. I hope that the Treasury will consider developing its own green index, along the lines of the Chinese proposal, as a starting point for recalculating economic growth. If that happens, we will truly be putting the environment at the heart of government.
	I wish you, Madam Deputy Speaker, your family, all hon. Members and all the staff of the House a happy and sustainable Christmas.

Oliver Heald: We have had an excellent debate in a spirit of good will, as one would expect in such a season.
	One of my hon. Friends who always speaks in this debate is absent today. I am thinking of my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess). Hon. Members will know that on these occasions he almost invariably raises the case of his constituent Maajid Nawaz, who is in prison in Cairo. He is absent because he is visiting Mr. Maajid Nawaz today, and he has asked me to give his apologies to the House.
	The debate has had at its core the care that hon. Members in all parties feel for others both at home and abroad. There has been a subset of issues to do with aviation and chemical escapes, but the broad theme has shown the House at its best.
	The hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Dr. Vis) started the debate with some remarks about Cyprus, which were echoed in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink). It is a tragedy that the island has been divided for so long. If the people can come together, perhaps in the spirit of the season, but certainly during the next months, and join the European Union, all hon. Members would think that an extremely happy outcome for a beautiful island and a friendly and hospitable people who would make marvellous members of the EU.
	The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) raised the constituency case of Sergeant Steven Roberts and shared with us the post-mortem findings. He raised the issue of equipment shortages in Iraq and suggested that the necessary body armour had not been available. He also highlighted the National Audit Office report that examined those concerns. It is good that he has been able to raise such an important issue. It is, of course, the purpose of this debate that matters that have not been raised before Christmas should be put before us. The hon. Gentleman said that in the discussion following the recent statement on the Defence White Paper, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) did not mention equipment shortages. If I may, I shall correct him, as I was there: my hon. Friend did refer to the issue.
	The hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst) spoke about airport capacity and the aviation White Paper, as did my hon. Friends the Members for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson), for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) and for Castle Point. Clearly, this has been a troubling, worrying issue for constituents in all those areas over recent years. When the hon. Gentleman spoke about his part of Essex I thought of my neighbouring part of Hertfordshire. I thought of the tracery of lanes and small roads with villages and market towns and of the rural life that has been lived there over centuries. It is heartbreaking to think what the effect of the Stansted expansion would be.
	I fully understand how hon. Members from other places that are threatened in this way feel. It is so destructive. Earlier this year, a number of hon. Members attended a march in London. All the campaigners from all the campaigns against airport expansion came together and marched through London to make the point that there is a united feeling about these issues. Villages in my constituency, such as Braughing, Little Hadham and Furneux Pelham, will think the proposal for Stansted disastrous. It is wrong that an environmental impact assessment has not taken place. The local road infrastructure and railways cannot take that development, which will cause immense damage.
	The description of the campaign given by other hon. Members was equally moving. My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge said that they ended one meeting by singing "Jerusalem". Perhaps the hon. Member for Braintree and I should try that next time we campaign against the proposals. Perhaps that is the answer. I am sure that the campaign will continue in Essex and east Hertfordshire in the new year.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Mr. Rosindell) told us about a Romford Christmas. He described the various events he attends and explained which schools and fairs he has visited. He also gave us the benefit of his thoughts on the UK and the EU, and how they interrelate; we heard about a useful charity in his constituency that supports people with sickle cell problems; and he ended by referring to Gibraltar. He gave us an instructive tour d'horizon, which showed how much he cares for Romford.
	I am sorry that I missed the speech by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman), who I understand gave an impassioned speech on anti-Semitism and highlighted the extremism of certain Islamic organisations. Every hon. Member will share her concern. It is vital that we remain a tolerant, liberal society. We must stand up for that. We all know of the desperate conditions that can occur if such extremism takes hold. She was right to raise that important issue.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) wanted an honour for his mother and complained that she would never get one because Labour has been fiddling with the honours system. He mentioned Gibraltar, council tax—for which we no longer have a level playing field—and post office closures. Hon. Members on both sides of the House are worried about post office closures. What has not come through sufficiently, however, is that the closures are the Government's fault. They have changed the benefit payments system and reduced the footfall in post offices. As a result, post offices are uneconomic and have to close. The Government decided to pay benefits directly and are stuck with the problem. They say, "Oh well, we are paying a little bit of money here and a little bit there towards the urban reinvention programme," but the scale of the closures is massive. The problem will continue throughout the new year and the Government must take much of the blame for it.
	The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) raised a constituency case about Mrs. Stevens, who was involved in problems arising from a car accident and compensation for it. He made a more general point on compensation fees for coal-mining cases and explained that some solicitors are behaving unscrupulously by taking part of the award, even though the fees are set by the Department of Trade and Industry, which is prepared to pay them. He is right to raise that issue. Again, that campaign will continue.
	The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith) was against variable fees for students. I agree that the expense of important courses, such as medicine and law, run by prestigious universities, is a barrier to poor people. They might want to take advantage of those opportunities, but will be more frightened by the prospect of the higher debt that they will incur if they have to pay those higher fees. Her point was that that will create a permanent barrier to using education as a ladder, so that people can go from the bottom of our society to the top and get into careers where a great deal of money is made. She asked for her views to be passed on to the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, and I hope that he will listen to them, because the same point is being made on both sides of the House.
	I shall quote what the Labour party manifesto says on that point: one can understand Labour Members' nervousness on the subject when one reads:
	"We will not introduce 'top-up' fees and have legislated to prevent them."
	If that is the case and one stood for election on that manifesto as recently as 2001, one can understand the nervousness involved in telling all the young people and parents in a constituency, "Oh well, actually, we are going to introduce top-up fees and the legislation to prevent them is being repealed." Let us hope that the Secretary of State will think further about that.
	In addition to his remarks about airports, my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge referred to the appalling conditions in which some refugees find themselves in Kosovo and Krajina. That issue has been raised in the House often recently, and it needs further investigation. I should be interested to hear what the Deputy Leader of the House has to say about that. Certainly, a promise that he will raise the matter with the Foreign Secretary would be welcome. My hon. Friend also mentioned rugby, and it is right that, as we approach Christmas, we should celebrate the fact that we won the rugby World cup, and the achievement of Richard Hill.
	The hon. Member for West Bromwich, West (Mr. Bailey) raised some health issues, particularly in relation to Tipton, and he has some interesting ideas about using salaried general practitioners to fill gaps and about using physician assistants. No doubt the Deputy Leader of the House will pass on those ideas to the Department of Health.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point raised a range of issues, such as housing needs and the 200th anniversary of Nelson's birthday. Perhaps in that context I can mention the fact that Letchworth garden city, which is in my constituency, celebrated its 100th birthday this year. We have had a marvellous year. The Duke of Gloucester opened the new Broadway gardens. We have had firework displays, and a new green lane has been opened all around Letchworth. It has been a marvellous anniversary. Let us hope that we can do something very good indeed for Nelson's 200th.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point has a long campaign behind him, and no doubt to come, on youth drunkenness. I remember that he introduced a Bill on the subject in the 1996–97 Session. His Bill was enacted, and the Act was not repealed without a fight. I remember leading for the Opposition when debating the Criminal Justice and Police Bill in 2001, when we fought the repeal of that measure, so it is good to see it back. I congratulate the Government on that successful U-turn.
	The Child Support Agency is another thorny problem that comes up regularly in the Chamber. Of course the problem is the computer. New cases have been working on the new computer system since March, but Ministers always say, "Well, look, we can't bring the old cases on until the computer is working satisfactorily." Hon. Members will remember that we delayed the new cases for about two years because the computer did not work. It is time that the Government managed to get some of those computer projects working. Almost every computer project seems to be delayed, to be subject to criticism and to experience problems. I could list a dozen or so Government computer contracts that did not work, so perhaps the Deputy Leader of the House will pass on the message that we hope that the CSA computer will be in better health next year than it has this.
	The hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) raised a concern about a chemical company in his constituency that involved four emergencies in a short time. Clearly, that is a very worrying situation, and no doubt the Deputy Leader of the House will tell us whether the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will be able to go to the public meeting that the hon. Gentleman mentioned.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) mentioned another chemical company and the problems with it. He also mentioned special schools—many Members feel that they should not be closed and that there should be adequate school facilities—the Office of Fair Trading inquiry into the British horse racing industry, which is a complicated issue, and Ethiopia.
	The hon. Member for Hornchurch (John Cryer) told us about a tip with gas escapes—Ahern's tip. He also mentioned Sure Start schemes, and made a point with which I have a lot of sympathy about how the system is ward-based. It is a problem across the south-east of England that a ward can exist that has within it an area of valuable property and obvious prosperity, and right beside it an estate with all the indicators of deprivation that one would see in a totally deprived ward. Those who live there, however, cannot access some of the schemes that are designed to help people in their situation. That is a good point, which will no doubt be relayed to the Minister.
	The hon. Member for Hornchurch also criticised us over Europe, which did not surprise me—it is a family tradition. Having said that, many Members on both sides of the House were very enthusiastic for the European project—I certainly was at one time: I went campaigning for Europe with Lord George-Brown in 1975. Over the years, however, we have come to see a different kind of Europe from the one for which we hoped. The hon. Gentleman will say that he always imagined that it would be just as it has turned out. Many of us, however, had hoped for something that was more a group of nation states co-operating together on issues of importance such as trade and the environment, and we feel that it has gone beyond that. That feeling exists not just in this country but more widely across Europe. If the EU does not come to appreciate that its peoples feel that they are not very close to the superstate that is developing, it will not survive. It is therefore important for Europe to try to move in a direction that takes it closer to its people.
	Finally, the hon. Member for Morley and Rothwell (Mr. Challen) made a speech that ranged widely, but on important issues. He talked about sustainable development. I followed him to a certain extent, but when he described the problems of capital and pollution, and environmental problems, I was forced to think about whether in the east of Europe, where there was socialism, there were not a lot of environmental problems. I seem to recall that there were, so it strikes me that talk of the cost of resource depletion and the polluter pays principle goes so far—it is right that we should address those issues—but we cannot say that it is all the fault of the capitalists. There were plenty of socialists making a filthy mess.
	In saying happy Christmas to everybody, including you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and in thanking the staff of the House, in all departments, for all that they do for us, which is tremendous, may I quote the words of Disraeli when he met a constituent on 24 December 1869? He said, "Merry Christmas."

Phil Woolas: I thank the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) for his typically polite, kind and open-minded remarks in winding up the debate. It is a particular pleasure to wind up this Christmas recess debate. I find myself in the perhaps enviable position of being the only person standing between the House of Commons and a drink in the bar—[Interruption.] I was going to offer to pay for the drinks, but I am pleased to see that the House has filled up recently, so perhaps we can restrict ourselves to halves.
	The House of Commons and Parliament is subject to intense criticism—some would say cynicism—in the modern world of public debate. On behalf of the House, I want to say that an enormous amount of valuable work and public service has been done by Members on both sides of the House in the past term. I have done some background work on this Session. The House may be interested to know that since the Queen's Speech just a few weeks ago, Ministers have given 161 written statements on a broad range of subjects; there have been five oral statements; Select Committees, which are increasingly engaged in public debate, have provided the House with 16 full reports; and, of course, there was the important decision to introduce pay for Select Committee Chairmen, which bodes well for the future and may herald other changes. The House of Commons now has more than 250 all-party groups, which engage in debate with large numbers of pressure groups, carry out their own investigations and express points of view. Parliament and the House of Commons remain at the centre of public debate and public life in this country. I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House appreciate that the main purpose of changes introduced by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, as well as other changes that we will debate in future, is to strengthen the role of Parliament in public life. Some of the changes were contentious and led to disagreement, but I hope that we all agree that they were intended to make the House of Commons the centre of public life and strengthen it in the eyes of the public. There is a balance to be struck between respect and relevance, but we are determined to achieve that balance.
	To respond to points made in our debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Dr. Vis) raised the important issue of Cyprus. He does so regularly in Adjournment debates, including at Whitsun and in the summer. I commend his single-mindedness, and hope I can offer reassurance by reminding him of the statement made by the Foreign Secretary on 15 December:
	"A majority of the Turkish Cypriot people has voted for a Cyprus settlement and EU accession. The will of the Turkish Cypriots has been clearly expressed albeit by a narrow margin—despite the widespread concerns expressed by many about the way in which the campaign was conducted. It is important that this desire is fully respected."
	I know that my hon. Friend will be pleased to hear that confirmation of Government policy.
	The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) raised an important issue on behalf of one of his constituents—the case of Sergeant Steven Roberts, who was killed on 24 March this year. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the way in which he raised the issue, and I can reassure him that the Ministry of Defence continues to investigate the death of Sergeant Roberts. It has kept Mrs. Roberts informed, but cannot comment publicly on the progress of the investigation at this stage. The Secretary of State for Defence has met Mrs. Roberts and members of the family, and is happy to agree to the request of the hon. Gentleman to do so again. I believe that the whole House would want every effort to be made to investigate the situation.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst) and several other Members raised the important issue of the future of national airports in the south-east at Stansted and Heathrow, as well as of regional airports. I remind the House of the purpose of the White Paper and the debate that has been launched. The Government should be commended on taking a long-term view. Planning for the position in 20, 30 or 40 years' time is important in the field of aviation but, in the past, both Conservative and Labour Governments have failed to put in place long-term plans to develop aviation. It is a telling fact that, in the time that we took to conduct an inquiry into the expansion of terminal 4 at Heathrow, Charles de Gaulle airport doubled its capacity. Governments must take heed of developments at Frankfurt, Schiphol, Charles de Gaulle and other major hub airports.
	The aviation industry directly supports about 200,000 jobs, and indirectly supports up to three times as many. Aviation contributes £13 billion a year to Britain's gross domestic product, and one third, by value, of our visible exports go by air. Air freight tonnages have doubled since 1990, and are expected to double again by 2010. Also, two thirds of the visitors to this country travel by air.
	However, I want to reassure hon. Members who have raised concerns about Heathrow, Stansted or elsewhere. The White Paper is statement of national policy. It does not authorise specific developments, which remain matters for the planning system. It will be for airport operators to bring forward planning applications for airport developments in the normal way. The White Paper attempts to provide a clear policy framework for individual decisions. In other words, much debate and discussion must still take place.
	It is right and proper for hon. Members to raise constituency issues. That reinforces my earlier point about the House's value residing in the fact that it is a public forum where such debates can be held.
	The hon. Member for Romford (Mr. Rosindell) made his usual impassioned and patriotic—some would call it nationalistic—speech. I began to think that the debate was being led by hon. Members from Essex, as there were a large number of contributions from that county.

Andrew Rosindell: We are assiduous.

Phil Woolas: The hon. Gentleman says that Essex Members of Parliament are assiduous. He spoke about the need to reinforce Christmas as a Christian festival. I am happy to confirm that that is the Government's view, regardless of the mischief in some of our media. I am sure that that is all good fun, and I can tell the House that only last weekend I visited the famous traditional Christian carol service celebrated on horseback at an equestrian centre near Saddleworth. I was not on horseback myself, but that might happen in the future.
	I was surprised that the hon. Member for Romford criticised the number of nightclubs in Essex. I am not certain that that will be popular with younger people in his constituency, but he made a serious point about the nature of his town centre. He also reminded the House about early-day motion 239, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Mr. Pope). It deals with the English national anthem, and it prompted many comments in the debate.
	The hon. Member for Romford said that he wants to retain "God Save The Queen" and that he did not want "Jerusalem" to replace it, as the early-day motion proposes. However, one of the most famous sons of his constituency is the late and great Ian Dury, who wrote "Reasons To Be Cheerful". Perhaps that should be adopted as Romford's anthem—although "Hit me with your Rhythm Stick" might cause me to stray beyond where I am willing to go.
	The hon. Member for Romford also talked about his early-day motion 202, which concerns the "a dog is for life, not just for Christmas" campaign. I am pleased to inform the hon. Gentleman that my briefing sheet says that the Government support that early-day motion. Being a good, dog-loving Government, we endorse the Dogs Trust campaign for responsible dog ownership. We are reviewing animal welfare legislation, and one of the review's aims will be to increase owners' responsibility for their animals. We want to reduce the number of animals abandoned every year, and Christmas is a good time to reaffirm that.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman) made what was perhaps the most impassioned speech in the debate, and the House will agree that its subject—anti-Semitism and the dangers of extremism—was the most important of the afternoon. The Government believe that to equate anti-Zionism and attitudes to a particular Israeli Government with anti-Semitism is both erroneous and dangerous. As the length of time that has passed since world war two and the holocaust grows, we all should redouble our efforts on behalf of the Holocaust Educational Trust. I know that hon. Members of all parties are involved in that. We must heed my hon. Friend's warning that, unfortunately, anti-Semitism seems to be on the increase.
	As I am sure my hon. Friend agrees, it is not only Jewish people but ordinary Muslim people who most strongly condemn and fear the extremism and intolerance of Islamic extremists. Islam is not an exclusive faith, but a faith of tolerance. It is worth reminding ourselves that, given the nature of the extremists to whom my hon. Friend rightly drew the House's attention, the tolerance that is a great characteristic of our country may be a bit naive. I think the Government will respond in that vein to my hon. Friend's comments.
	The hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) managed to congratulate his postman.

Nigel Evans: Trevor.

Phil Woolas: He also did a bit of creeping towards his mother. I hope that his turkey is a good one; I am sure it will be.
	The hon. Gentleman had a pop at the Government about council tax. When Conservative Members talk about council tax, they never say that it was not only introduced to replace the disastrous policy of the poll tax, but was paid for by increasing VAT—a regressive tax that punishes the less well off—from 15 per cent. to 17.5 per cent. They call for the devolution of powers to local councils, yet scream blue murder when it is given. They perpetuate the myth that the Government have taken money off the southern councils and given it to the northern councils. Many of my constituents up north would disagree with that. I remind them that since 1997 all authorities have had above-inflation increases in their grant.

Oliver Heald: I do not know whether the Deputy Leader of the House has read the Audit Commission's report, but it proves exactly what he just denied.

Phil Woolas: It does no such thing—it says that there are flaws in the local government finance system, which the hon. Gentleman's party introduced. It is obvious to anybody who is involved that as we are giving extra grant to councils across the board, it is unfair to say that we are robbing Peter to pay Paul.
	But I must move swiftly on. The hon. Member for Ribble Valley accused us of fiddling the honours system, but this Government are introducing an independent appointments system for the House of Lords that his party in the other place is dead set against. I find the hon. Gentleman's accusation unfair, given our track record, but perhaps we can have a bit of point-scoring at Christmas.
	My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) raised important constituency issues on behalf of his constituent Mrs. Ann Stevens, in relation to the miners' compensation scheme. I am pleased to be able to inform him that my hon. Friend the Minister for Small Business and Enterprise is going to write to all firms involved, including Mark Gilbert Morse, to ask for confirmation of its charging policy. It is worth pointing out that, as my hon. Friend acknowledged, it was this Government who introduced the scheme in the first place.
	The hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson) talked about airports policy. As a pilot and the representative of a constituency near London Heathrow, he speaks with a great deal of knowledge.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith), who is another regular participant in Adjournment debates, raised her concerns about university fees, which I will of course bring to the attention of the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, if he does not know them already. I look forward in the new year to a robust debate on how we can ensure that half our teenagers get the university degrees that will secure the graduate skills base we require in order to succeed in the modern industrial world.
	The hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) raised several issues, including airports policy and Kosovo. I will of course bring the latter concerns to the attention of the Foreign Secretary.
	My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, West (Mr. Bailey) made important points about the NHS and confirmed his view that reform is necessary to improve it. I will ensure that the Secretary of State for Health is aware of the specific ideas that he put forward, and I welcome his contribution to the debate.
	The hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) raised what seemed like dozens of issues in a wide-ranging speech. I shall pick on one, and assure him of support for Nelson's day. The Leader of the House has a model of Victory, Nelson's flagship, in his office, as hon. Members who have been involved in the consultations on the hours of the House know.
	My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) again raised the case of Staveley Chemicals. We shall write to him again about it.
	The hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson), and my hon. Friends the Members for Hornchurch (John Cryer) and for Morley and Rothwell (Mr. Challen) also made important speeches.
	I wish the House a happy Christmas.

ILLEGAL CAMPING

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Charlotte Atkins.]

Mark Todd: I fear that the debate will have no seasonal edge. Illegal camping does not relate to Santa Claus, his elves and his reindeer, exhausted from delivering presents in South Derbyshire, finding temporary sustenance there. It is a regular nuisance that my constituents constantly fear and face. On this occasion, I want to concentrate on that nuisance when it occurs on Highways Agency property.
	Few people in South Derbyshire have much good will towards those who camp illegally in our area, avoid the two authorised sites, damage other people's properties and leave often repulsive waste behind them when they go. Few will send Christmas cards to public bodies that are supine in the face of that illegality and throw public money away rather than using their legal rights as property owners.
	I have raised matters that relate to illegal camping on several occasions in the House. Tonight, I shall focus on the way in which the Highways Agency handles intrusion on its property. I intend to refer to only two sites in my constituency, about which I have substantial facts that are based on my correspondence and parliamentary questions. Travellers' occupation of agency land in South Derbyshire is common, yet the obvious lessons that I shall present in the debate are never learned.
	In April 2000, travellers occupied an agency site at the junction of the A38 and the A50 near Willington in my constituency. They were there for some time, and obvious and blatant breaches of law took place. The Environmental Protection Act 1990 seeks to prevent dumping waste at unauthorised sites. It also attempts to prevent the carriage of waste in unauthorised vehicles—clearly a dangerous and often unhygienic activity. The penalties for offences can rightly be severe and include confiscating vehicles.
	The occupiers of the site turned it into something like a battlefield. Stripped-down, burnt-out cars were scattered over the site, which was in full public view. Entrance to it and activities on it could readily be observed. When the travellers left—the Highways Agency was so tardy in pursuing possession that they eventually left of their own accord—the agency cleared the site at a public cost of nearly £14,000. It spent nearly £4,000 erecting barriers at the entrance and a further £17,000 establishing a 24-hour watch on the site. A person lived in a caravan there to prevent a repetition of events. The figures exclude agency time, abortive legal costs and doubtless much else that fell outside the narrow confines of my parliamentary question. The site was sold and no occupations have since taken place.
	What do we learn from the first incident? First, the agency possessed pockets of land, of some value to someone else, that it did not know what to do with. Once road schemes are completed, surplus land should be rapidly disposed of. Secondly, the agency is slow in obtaining possession. I am well aware that, like any public agency, the Highways Agency must act within the law and according to Government guidance on the matter. Correspondence with the agency constantly reiterates that anxiety. However, other public bodies—for example, the district and county councils in my area—perform similar obligations far more quickly, and they are governed by the same guidance and law. In some instances, the agency is prepared to go to some expense to protect a site once it has been violated. I shall return to this point later, because this is something that the chief executive of the agency appears not to recall.
	The agency has little knowledge of environmental law. In the case of the illegal carriage of waste, it need be demonstrated only that a vehicle was being used for that purpose. No identification of the driver is required, and even perfunctory observation of this or other sites would have yielded prosecutable evidence without confrontation with individuals.
	Let me turn to the next case. In March, a group of travellers occupied a large agency site adjacent to the A50 at Foston. Again, it rapidly became obvious that waste carriage and dumping was taking place. It took until 9 May for proceedings to go to court. No attempts were made to impede activity on site, or to prosecute blatant offenders. Following my initial queries, the agency explained its approach thus:
	"Unauthorised encampments are generally tolerated, particularly if there are no authorised sites to which the Gypsies may move. The Agency would not wish to move a problem on to other private land, especially if it meant worse problems might be created. This advice has been used in this case, resulting in the queried delays."
	It is worth noting—clearly the writer of this letter was ignorant of this fact—that this site is within walking distance of an authorised site on Woodyard Lane. There is no evidence that the agency liaised with either the district council, which manages the site, or the county council, which is responsible for it, to determine whether authorised pitches were, or could be, made available, either there or at the other authorised site at Lullington.
	The last sentence of the chief executive's letter illustrates the next problem. It reads:
	"I anticipate the travellers will now move on and we will be able to secure the site against any further occupation."
	Of course, the measures taken were woefully inadequate. The bund erected was removed in short order, and much the same group of travellers was back in August. It is fortunate—perhaps we should count this as a blessing amid all the staggering incompetence—that no attempt had been made to clear the site of waste that had been generated by the first occupation. If that had happened, the public cost would have been higher still.
	"Happily", as the acting chief executive perhaps ironically told me, the agency once again obtained legal authority to reoccupy the site on 13 October. It is worth noting again the extraordinary delay. The occupation was in August, but the agency did not gain legal authority to reoccupy until 13 October. There had been some intervening difficulties. As Mr. Hickey's letter mildly puts it,
	"there was a misunderstanding in communications at one stage, which resulted in unwarranted criticisms being levelled at the Police".
	Perhaps I can give a rather more blunt account. The local police were asked to produce written reports, which they did in short order. They fondly imagined—although one wonders why, given their previous dealings with the Highways Agency—that the agency might be pressing ahead with some urgency. Instead, their efforts were swallowed in agency bureaucracy and then, worse still, residents were told that police delays were holding up proceedings. Optimistically, Mr. Hickey adds:
	"However, our staff continue to enjoy excellent working relationships with the local constabulary."
	Whatever those relations are, they are not excellent. I shall return with another illustration of that later in this account.
	I also queried waste dumping on site. Mr. Hickey agreed that this was "vexing". He pleaded that there were no witnesses. We then had the waste clearance and site security costs to face. The cost of clearing the site was estimated at about £24,000, although I do not know what the final figure was. Securing the site properly was estimated to cost nearly another £2,000. Legal fees were approaching £4,000 with, when my parliamentary question was answered, more to come.
	By this time, Archie Robertson had taken over as chief executive. I am not sure whether the turnover of people at the Highways Agency has had anything to do with competence in respect of handling such matters, but one can only hope for a better performance. I queried what efforts had been made to tackle quite blatant law breaking on the site. Perhaps too politely, I pointed to what appeared to be a passive approach. I should explain that the site is in even more public view than the Willington site, as it can be readily observed from all angles, and access to it can be watched with no difficulty whatever. On the suggestion that it might be cost-effective to observe the site, he remarked:
	"Observing the site may help to bring a prosecution, however it might not prevent the waste being dumped, nor facilitate removal of the waste afterwards. It might present the possibility of re-charging the travellers for the cost of clearing the site, but I am sure you can recognise the severe difficulties involved in bringing that off successfully.
	Even if we could justify assigning Agency staff on a 24-hour basis"
	—I shall return to that point in a moment—
	"to observe a site, and I doubt that we could, I would still have concerns over the safety of my staff. After all, staff would be on their own, doing something antagonistic to the travellers, and would have to be close enough to them to take vehicle details, make detailed observations of characters and their actions etc. I would not want to put my staff into such a situation, but recognise that the Environment Agency may have appropriate surveillance capability."
	There are obvious points to make. Again, the law seems little understood. That on waste carriage in particular is draconian. The owner of the vehicle is prosecutable regardless of whether they knew of the vehicle's illegal use. Simple identification of vehicles and tracing of owners is all that is required to enforce that section of the law. There is also concern for the agency's staff, which overrides any concern at the agency for upholding the law.
	Furthermore, no attempt—I have checked this in conversation with the local police—was made to involve the police or the enforcement authorities, which are the Environment Agency and the district council, in addressing the problem. The constant references to collaboration with statutory agencies, which pepper the letters that I receive, are entirely confined to the narrow processes of complying with Government guidelines on the welfare of travellers.
	Proper collaboration for the benefit of the local community or to save taxpayers' money is singularly absent. Also, the chief executive was unaware of the 24-hour surveillance paid for in my constituency by the agency, but two years earlier. He refers to it being quite impossible to consider 24-hour surveillance, although there is no evidence that it need take place for as long as that. As I have demonstrated, however, it was paid for in another location about 4 miles away.
	Once again, after those costly events, the site was sold. The new owner—the former owner—will, I am certain, manage it effectively and ensure that these events become an unpleasant memory. Continued agency ownership, on its track record, would be a recipe for further cost and harm. Let me be clear about the simple steps that the agency must take and should have taken previously. First, it should review its surplus land immediately on completion of a road and transfer that land to proper ownership as a matter of urgency. In both sites, road construction had long passed by.
	Secondly, in sites the agency must retain or where it cannot rapidly transfer ownership, it should appraise risk of occupation and take appropriate defensive measures.
	Thirdly, should those defences be breached, it should co-operate with other agencies in enforcing the law, not merely in protecting the rights of illegal campers.
	Fourthly, the agency should ensure that its operatives and agents have at least a basic knowledge of the law so that they may act as witnesses to any offences.
	Fifthly, it should review its legal processes, uncover why it is renowned for sloth and increase its speed, because delay means cost.
	Finally, it should not regard law breaking as a vexing problem to be swamped with taxpayers' money, but should instead recognise a responsibility to help to uphold the law and protect public resources.
	Agency complacency, passivity and ignorance have cost more than £70,000 in this small area on just two sites. I dread to think how much of our money is hosed at this problem nationwide. New strategies, tactics and attitudes are required. I look forward to the Minister's response.

David Jamieson: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) on securing this debate, and on giving us and Madam Deputy Speaker the opportunity to turn the lights out in the Chamber at the end of this year.
	Like my hon. Friend, I take the problems associated with illegal camping very seriously. I know my hon. Friend has been concerned for some time about unauthorised camping by travellers in his constituency. I am also aware that he has written to the Highways Agency on several occasions about the travellers who occupied agency land, in particular near the A50 at Foston in Derbyshire.
	It is with regret that I must apologise to my hon. Friend and his constituents for what I believe are inadequacies in the Highways Agency's handling of this matter. It is apparent from my investigations that the agency could have handled it very much better than it did.
	In the first instance, the agency should have identified the vulnerability of the site and secured it appropriately. Secondly, it should have made the site more secure once the travellers had been removed, which would have prevented re-occupation. I believe that a 2-ft bund was built on the second occasion, which was clearly inadequate when it was known that the travellers were in the gardening business and had the tools to move a small bund. Unfortunately, that had escaped the notice of the people who secured the site.
	I am pleased to say that the travellers were evicted for a second time on 17 October this year, and that the site has now been completely cleansed, properly secured and tenanted, and is awaiting sale.
	I fully recognise that gypsies and travellers must have somewhere to live. I am sure that my hon. Friend realises also that beginning, or contributing to, an ongoing cycle of eviction is not a sensible, fair or sustainable way forward. Nevertheless, there are occasions when eviction is the only appropriate course of action.
	The Highways Agency acquires land in connection with the construction and development of the strategic road network. After construction, any surplus land parcels are identified for disposal. That was the case at Foston, where the land was being reinstated prior to disposal, when it was illegally occupied. The agency works to meet Treasury disposal time scales in completing this procedure. It is my belief that these sites should be disposed of as rapidly as is practicable after it is found that they are surplus to requirements.
	Eviction of unauthorised campers on land adjacent to the highway is dealt with by the police, given the obvious road safety implications. They can, and do, use their powers to remove any obstruction or safety hazard to road users. The position is more complicated where illegal camping occurs on Highways Agency land not directly connected to the highway. As my hon. Friend has stated, the Highways Agency, as a public body, must work within the policy set by Government for dealing with illegal camping. Consequently, great care needs to be exercised when taking the decision as to whether to evict the gypsies or travellers. The right balance must be struck between the needs of the gypsies and travellers and the concerns of the wider community, whose interests my hon. Friend has represented.
	The general approach by all bodies when dealing with unauthorised camping on land not directly connected to the highway is that responses must be proportionate and carefully considered. That was the approach taken by the Highways Agency in the Foston case. As I am sure my hon. Friend understands, to have done otherwise would have left the agency vulnerable to criticism, and even action in the courts.
	I realise that my hon. Friend feels that the Highways Agency has not been as quick in handling these incidents as other public bodies. I have asked the agency to investigate how it can capture the experience of other Government agencies, and make the necessary improvements.
	In the case of the Foston encampment, the fact that the land was surplus and ready for sale, the environmental concerns and the high level of local concern all carried significant weight. Nevertheless, the Highways Agency had to consider the arguments in favour of eviction against the travellers' right to education and housing and their health needs. Obviously the agency had to seek advice from other bodies when considering those counter-arguments. The need to consider such factors does take time in the process of trying to repossess land. As I have said, failure to give adequate consideration to such issues could have led to court action against the Highways Agency.
	The agency believes it acts within the Government's best-practice guidance: that is what it tells me. Let me set out the main sequence of events at the Foston site. The agency first became aware of the illegal occupation on 26 March 2003. The next day officials sought urgent reports from the local education, health and social services departments, and the police. It was clear by 31 March that there was considerable local disquiet over the travellers' behaviour, and by 2 April the agency had advised the Treasury Solicitor's Office of the illegal occupation and the possible need for litigation. On that same day, the local health officer reported that there were no health concerns among the travellers.
	On 3 April, the Highways Agency was advised that seven of the children on the site wished to attend school. The local education officer asked that the families be allowed to remain until the Easter school break on 12 April. While the agency could have proceeded with eviction action at that point, it chose not to. The decision was in line with Government policy to encourage greater education opportunities among the travelling community. A notice to vacate was not served until 9 April, which would come into effect after the end of the school term.
	The first court hearing took place on 23 May. The last of the travellers moved off the site on 29 May, and bunding was put in place to secure the site and prevent re-entry. With the benefit of hindsight, the agency now accepts that the bunding was inadequate in the circumstances.
	The next day, the agency's managing agent was instructed to obtain quotations for clearing the site. The agency approved the implementation of additional remedial works to prevent reoccupation on 22 August. However, the travellers reoccupied the site on 23 August, having breached the bunding.
	The agency took the view, given the problems from the previous occupation, that the second illegal occupation had to be ended forthwith. However, it was again necessary to have regard to the travellers' needs. The other agencies' reports were received by mid-September, and by 9 October a further notice was sent to the occupiers.
	Once the court hearing on 13 October had found in favour of the Highways Agency, the travellers were removed within four days. I believe that the site has now been completely cleaned, and I understand that action is in hand to sell it back to the former owner of the land. The site access has been blocked with sizeable concrete barriers to prevent re-entry. My hon. Friend and his constituents must have wondered why that was not done after the first occupation, or even why the barriers were not there before it. I shall certainly take that up with the agency.
	I understand that the immediate costs arising from the Foston occupations were in the region of £31,000, yet putting in place the concrete barriers to begin with would probably have cost less than £2,000. This seems to be a case of a penny being spent today perhaps saving a pound wasted tomorrow. I hope that the Highways Agency will take note of that point. As my hon. Friend said, the majority of the costs related to site clearance, the remainder consisting of legal fees, police overtime and the provision of bunding and concrete blocks.
	My hon. Friend has expressed concern about alleged illegally dumped waste at Foston. The Environment Agency has inspected the site and could identify only non-hazardous waste related to the work that the travellers were carrying out. It consisted mainly of tree clippings and a small quantity of building waste. No prosecutions could be brought, as it was impossible to ascertain its source to a prosecutable standard.

Mark Todd: Will my hon. Friend concede that, despite the fact that the waste was undoubtedly non-hazardous, it was nevertheless deposited illegally, its carriage on to the site was almost certainly illegal as well, and the agency had taken no steps to prevent either offence?

David Jamieson: My hon. Friend is almost certainly right.
	I have made the Highways Agency aware of my concern at its lack of action in dealing with illegal waste dumping on its land. My hon. Friend pointed out that the agency provided 24-hour security at the Willington site. That action was instigated because the site still had a building on it. Although the structure was in a poor state of repair, the agency has a duty to protect its buildings from damage, so it employed a guard to do so. This measure had the additional effect of deterring re-occupation by travellers. The agency has agreed to investigate more proactive procedures to prevent illegal waste dumping, and to work much more closely with local enforcement agencies.
	I accept that the Highways Agency could have acted more proactively in the Foston case, and I hope that it has learned very important lessons. It is clear that there is significant room for further improvement. In particular, the agency will reassess the vulnerability of its land, and secure it from illegal entry where the risk is considered high. I have instructed it to do that as a matter of urgency, both in my hon. Friend's constituency and in other areas of high traveller activity. It will review its procedures for securing land following eviction. It will also bear this issue in mind when acquiring new areas of land, in order to pre-empt the possibility of illegal occupation, and it will implement appropriate security measures. One of the most valuable lessons learned is the importance of working closely with all other interested parties, including the local community, public agencies and law enforcement bodies. It would appear that this liaison needs improvement, and the agency will need to look at how other public landowners handle illegal occupation and waste dumping. There are some simple lessons that it could easily learn and adopt, thereby improving its practice.
	I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this issue, and for giving me the opportunity to explain the Highways Agency's handling of illegal camping at Foston. There have been mistakes, for which the agency sincerely apologises. It will take on board the valid points that he makes, and I am confident that in future—under the leadership of the new chief executive, Archie Robinson, in whom I have enormous confidence—the handling of these matters will be sharpened, and lessons will have been learned. As always, my hon. Friend has raised such matters in a diligent way on his constituents' behalf. He has made an important point, which will prove of benefit to many other people, as well.
	I take this opportunity to wish you a very merry Christmas, Madam Deputy Speaker, and a happy and successful new year. It is a pleasure for us to be here tonight, making the last contribution of the year. I look forward to making many further contributions, and to enjoying debates with you in the Chair.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Six o'clock.